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Part 2 of what we share (and what we hide)
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Published:
2018-10-18
Updated:
2020-09-07
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219,149
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18/?
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Trust Fall

Summary:

Tony has always been creator and destroyer, a man who can reach out and touch and make the world burn or gleam gold, or both; And he never knows which one it’ll be until it's too late. But for all he is a man of science, he cannot deny the obvious, cruel, cruel irony of his curse, of his legacy, of his fate - Of this mission he’s been given, seemingly, by the universe itself.

Tony once built himself a new heart with a box of scraps. Now, he will have to find a way to bring back life directly from the ashes.

And if he does not burn himself to the ground on the way, maybe – just maybe, he will live long enough to see his world turn to gold one last time.

Notes:

So. Infinity War, huh. What’s up with that?

Listen. I’m not gonna sit here waiting for Avengers 4 to come around to try and save the massacre that happened in Infinity War. Let’s be honest, I trust the MCU writers about as far as I can throw them, so I might as well finish what I started. I’ve been playing with this idea for a while, since before IW was released, but now IW has provided some new facts, it’s time for me to pick these facts apart and see how they fit among the collection of headcanons I gathered over the years. It’s a wild ride. Also kind of a mess.

A lot of the things I built this upon come all the way back from Age of Ultron. Yes, you read that right. No, we are not pretending it didn’t exist. AoU is garbage in a lot of ways, but to be perfectly honest, that’s exactly why I’m using it. You know the saying ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’? To me, AoU is the perfect example of it, and you will soon learn that I am an opportunist of the worst kind. Don’t give me an opening, because I will use it; and there’s a lot of interesting tidbits of information Marvel just left hanging around there, ready for the taking, so this is me picking them up and stitching them together into a single plot. Because of that – besides obvious spoilers for Infinity War – there’s a lot of references to previous movies, especially Avengers 1, AoU, Doctor Strange, Thor: The Dark World, and Thor Ragnarok, so keep your eyes open for that. But to be honest, no movie in this franchise is safe from me. Not only that, I will also be making use of information found in the adjacent stories of the MCU, particularly the Agents of SHIELD series. Yes, that's how far I'm going with this. I said it's a wild ride, and I mean it.

But don't worry if you've never seen the series. Unlike the MCU, I like to keep my plot well-explained.

Also, do keep in mind that while this fic uses only MCU content, this is not meant to be an Avengers 4 prediction. It is... an alternative. As someone who has watched Ant-Man and the Wasp and has some idea of how Captain Marvel will unfold and is familiar with the comics, I have a pretty good guess of what will be necessary for Avengers 4 to occur. My problem with it is that, as MCU usually does, there's a lot of convenient information that will be brought up in those two movies, information that has never before been hinted as useful (and could be explained by foreshadowing) but suddenly it will be, or simply information that was completely unknown up until the point something was needed to fill in a gap in their storyline. Which, frankly, I find unnecessary, because we already have 10 years worth of story and information that could be more than enough to tie it all together in a logical, interesting way.

So, what I'm doing is exactly that. Even though I love Carol very much and was extremely entertained by Ant-Man and the Wasp, I will not wait two years for Marvel to come up with some plot device to try to save themselves from this corner in which they backed themselves into. The word going around the grapevine tells me that A4 will occur only 4 years after the snap; That is absolutely unacceptable. No more of this waiting game. We’re fixing this, right here, right now.

It’s kinda like a challenge for myself: what would happen if we had to fix Infinity War using only what was already given to us and nothing else? No extra help, no divine intervention? Our toolbox is the MCU and MCU only, up until Infinity War and no further - Let's see what happens.

Or rather, the true question is: can I really use everything I can get my hands on as a tool and find a way to make it work as a fix-it, making sense of even the most ridiculous parts, and still be able to achieve a happy ending? The answer is yes. Yes, I can.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It tastes like ash inside his mouth.

It tastes like—

It tastes like death.

 

(He did it.)

(He won.)

 

The world is quiet.

The universe is quiet. The silence is deafening in its cruelty, cutting as deep as the blade that went through his stomach, visceral and gut-wrenching pain, aching in a way he knows he can’t make it stop. There is only one sound, one constant, gentle whistle of a breeze that should not even exist, the low rumbling of a distant storm, something he can’t be sure if it’s truly there or it’s only a trick of his mind; A mockery of his senses, an illusion to somehow translate the mess within.

The world is quiet. Too quiet. 

It’s over.

They lost.

Tony sits on the ground, curled up in a ball, uncaring of the presence behind him. It might as well not be there. He feels alone, he feels so utterly, completely alone, an empty body floating amidst nothingness, meaningless and small and useless. He has no strength anymore. He’s hurting, he’s exhausted, and he’s tired, so, so tired – There is nothing he can do now.

It tastes like ash inside his mouth because he uses his hand to cover it, to try to hold back the sob that rises up his throat unbidden, raw and pure agony, needing to keep his lips shut or else he will break. Hands that held Peter as the vanished. Hands that are trembling and aching, hands who felt the warmth of the body he grasped just dissipate away, the weight and the presence blinking out of existence right before his eyes, leaving him alone in this stranded land, in this vast, deep, silent planet. Forgotten and broken, left to waste away, just as he was.

The cold, cold feeling of a tear sliding down his face is the useless replacement for the scream that dies inside his chest, voiceless before it can even attempt to escape, dying suffocated inside his aching body. All sounds die out, just like the world around him, just like his heart, and he cries in silence, just as he always did. As he learned, a long, long time ago.

For a second, he thinks he’s disappearing too, because it hurts so much.

The hitching of his breath makes his lungs hurt, and his eyes burn. His brain feels like it will explode from the pressure in his temples. Everything inside him is tight, constricting into itself, collapsing, an imminent demise.

He thinks he is dying.

Nothing else can hurt so bad. Nothing else would be so cruel.

He thinks he is dying—

But he is not.

He is still alive.

(The one who least deserves it.)                                

He pushes his hand firmly against his lips, unable to stop the whimper that escapes him, and no matter how hard he closes his eyes, even when white spots explode under his eyelids and pain flares from inside his sockets, he cannot erase the vision of Pete’s eyes welling with tears and the jerking of his throat, swallowing back a sob, as his eyes rolled back and he turned into dust—

He promised himself he wouldn’t let anything happen to that kid.

He promised.

He feels himself sway side to side, like a child trying to console himself, the hopeless pleas of a broken man. He’s shaking so violently, like his body doesn’t know what to do with itself. Like it doesn’t know how to respond to such agony. He feels his mind crumbling, unable to focus on anything for more than one second, like the madness that afflicted him after a nightmare – flashes of everything and nothing, all at once, images and sounds that couldn’t be explained by words, only by feelings like sorrow, and fear, and hopelessness.

Tony wishes he didn’t feel anything at all.

He wishes he had vanished too. Vanished like the Guardians. Strange. Peter.

The universe.

(Peter.)

It’s his fault. His fault. He knows it is. He knew it would be, he always knew. He should’ve done something when he had the chance. He doesn’t know what, he can’t even think, he can only quiver and shake and wait until his body finally gives out. Until the pain in his chest becomes too much and his heart seizes painfully, beating too fast and too loud, too dangerous, too old, and it finally, finally finishes him off. Tony always knew it could happen. He always knew, even after so many procedures to lessen the odds, after so many years forcing himself to take care of his health to try and stop it – ever since the beginning, ever since Afghanistan, he knew there would be a day his heart wouldn’t take it. It was already scarred. It was already fated to failure.

He waits for it, he truly does. He almost begs for it.

As he rocks himself side to side, tears burning in his eyes behind his lids, sobbing into his palm, he waits for the moment where the pain that bursts from his left arm to spread into his chest, expanding like an explosion, taking up his torso and limbs in a red-hot flare of pain, to then succumb to numbness.

It never comes. It would be only mercy, but it never comes.

After all this time, Tony doesn’t even get the small reprieve of dying when he wants to. When he most deserves it.

(He almost considers getting up and doing it himself.)

(Maybe ripping open the mesh he applied onto his stab wound, letting his body finish the job.)

(Left alone, it should hold for hours before the titanium levels started to verge on dangerous, poisoning his blood and slowly killing him.)

(Tony has never been a skilled biologist. It was meant for stalling, not for healing. It will kill him all the same, but he could make it faster.)

(But does it matter, now?)

Or maybe he should just stay here and let himself waste away. He doesn’t want to get up. His body won’t do more than flinch and tremble, muscles spasming with discharges of adrenaline, stiff and cramping, as he can’t do anything other than let tears spill and try uselessly to take a breath with his aching lungs – and maybe he should let it. It’s like moving will make it real. It’s like allowing himself to use his body will remind him he still has one, that the universe hasn’t stilled in its axis, although it does feel like it has. Moving will mean thinking, and thinking will mean acknowledging that this is true.

That they lost.

That it’s over.

(But it’s true.)

There is no fixing it. This time, there is no solution. Tony can’t fix this, he can’t, because there is nothing to reach for anymore. It all faded away. Thanos took everything from him; As Tony always knew he would, as he always so desperately tried to stop it. Tony has done so much, he has restlessly thought about this, about this threat, about this final enemy, and he knew he would never be ready – but fuck, he had tried. He tried so hard. So hard it nearly killed him, more than once, so hard it made him lose almost everything. So hard it had gotten him nightmares that wouldn’t leave, so hard he became obsessed with being better, faster, stronger, eyes so far into the future he almost let his present slip away.

What for?

What can Tony do, if he is just human, and his enemy is so much more?

(It’s not fair.)

(It’s never fair.)

(He is cursed.)

(It’s not fair.)

They failed. He failed.

What else could he have done? Stronger armor? Better plan? What else? Tony doesn’t know. He had already been going all out, after years and years of planning, of upgrading, of improving and obsessing. Tony knows he is smart, but he has his limits, and fuck

How could he have known Thanos would be so above those limits? What could he have done? Tony never leisured, never forgotten the threat, but somehow, it was still not enough, he should have done more—

(I should have saved them.)

(All of them.)

Useless, ridiculous human. Stupid, naïve Tony.

(I’m no hero.)

(I lost.)

One drop of blood. That was all he could take. He managed one mere, measly drop of blood, after all he has done. His best armor, his finest work, powerless before his greatest enemy.

Tony should have done more.

It’s bullshit that he’s still alive. It’s— It’s just plain mockery, it’s a travesty, and he does not deserve it. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want to be the only one left after everything he’s ever loved is gone. God, that is his biggest fear. Please, let it not be true, he won’t stand it, he should’ve died when Thanos shoved his own blade into his stomach—

And he would’ve been dead by then. But then, Strange gave up the Time Stone for him.

(He shouldn’t have.)

Goddamn idiot. That— That stupid, brainless, complete and utter idiot! Why? Why would he do it? They could have fought. They still had a chance. Why would he give up one of the most powerful objects in the universe to save Tony? Had he let Tony go to waste, has he used the damn thing to go back and try to gain some advantage over Thanos— no, he gave it over in exchange for Tony’s life.

(He’s not worth it.)

Of all things he could have bargained for—

(It’s not worth it.)

Why Tony?

(Why is it always Tony?)

(Let him rest.)

(God, please.)

(Let it be over.)

(He can’t take this anymore.)

Strange had given up the Time Stone for him. And he faded away looking Tony in the eye as if he’d made the right choice, as if he hadn’t just committed the biggest mistake of his life, and he said—

We’re in the end game now, he said.

End game? No, it fucking isn’t.

It isn’t end game. It’s just an end.

His body lurches forward, reacting violently to his completely jumbled emotions, and he feels he’s going to vomit for a second, but there is nothing inside him to be expelled. He is hollow. His skin feels like it doesn’t fit, his arm hurts, it hurts so bad, it’s shaking and Tony still can feel the lingering warmth between his fingers, the last memory he has fading away, going cold with each passing second, disappearing—

They did not deserve it. God, none of them had deserved it. Pete should’ve stayed home, safe and protected, Tony should’ve never allowed this, and now the kid is gone—

A sob does escape his mouth at this point.

He presses his hand harder against his lips.

It tastes like death still.

The flavor will never leave his tongue now.

 

How do you survive after this?

After the closest thing you can feel to death, without actually dying?

(The answer is)

(You don’t.)

 

He doesn’t know how long he stays like this.

It could be minutes. It could be hours. Time doesn’t really matter anymore, once the enemy has taken it all.

He can hear the presence of another being close by, by a soft, light breathing, and the sound of crinkly fabric and scratches of sand under boots. That blue thing, he recalls, the one who looked half alien and half robot, the one who came from nowhere and attacked Thanos, who asked for Gamora.  

It might be one of the Guardians, he distantly remembers. It’s like the thought comes from very far away, from somewhere other than inside his mind, like a voice whispering very close to his ear, with no breath and no sound.

They talked to Quill.

They fought Thanos.

They were also left behind.

Tony wonders if this is the irony the universe has in store for him. The last of the Avengers, standing with the last of the Guardians, both of them trapped in a deserted planet, to rot away slowly.

He hopes that’s not it.

If it were up to him, he’d at least die alone.

(No, don’t.)

(I don’t want to be alone.)

The blue being shifts and grunts, as if they’re getting up from a sitting position, after God knows how long since they both fell to the ground and just stayed there. Tony wonders, distantly, if they can cry. If they heard him, as he did. Even if it’s stupid, even if it’s of no consequence now, Tony feels his neck burn with embarrassment, with the old, familiar shame of being caught vulnerable, especially by a complete stranger as this Guardian.

The Guardian stands, then walks around aimlessly, their footsteps incredibly light and incredibly loud at the same time, in Tony’s overwhelmed mind.

“We have to leave.” The being says, quiet and firm, a tone that is not unkind, but is also not gentle. A sound of reluctance. A sound of bitter defeat. “We can’t stay here.”

Tony doesn’t answer. If he opens his mouth, he will sob. He can only shake his head, turning his face to the left so the creature won’t be able to see his red, swollen face, tear tracks along his cheeks and blood staining his lips, mixing iron and ash at the back of his tongue, the flavor of cruel, cruel irony.

“We can’t stay.” The being insists, a little more aggressively, when Tony doesn’t respond. “This is a hostile planet. The atmosphere will kill us both if we stay here too long.”

Possibly. Tony doesn’t really care. The part of his mind that never shuts down, the hyperactive, science-oriented one, does wonder how they’ve been able to stay here, with no oxygen support, for as long as they have.

(Maybe there is oxygen.)

(There is. The flamethrower worked. No flame if there is no oxygen.)

(Elevated levels of carbon monoxide due to explosions, sulfur and iron, possibly nitrogen.)

(How many hours of oxygen are there left? He can’t calculate. He doesn’t know anything about this planet to be able to make an assumption.)

(It would mean a slow death.)

(Like falling asleep.)

“We have nowhere to go.” Tony argues, weakly, removing the hand on his mouth only to press it against his face, blocking his eyes, the light too much on his sensitive irises. The weight of his own words catches up to him and he rocks back and forth again, unconsciously, his other hand instinctively laying itself over his Arc Reactor – his nanite compartment, dammit –, his heart, as if he could press away the pain that flares inside. “We’re trapped here. It’s over. He won. We’re done.”

“We’re still alive.” The being says, injecting strength into their voice. “I would like to keep it that way.”

Oh, are we?, the dark corners of Tony’s mind whisper. Sure doesn’t feel like it.

The being mustn’t feel – or care – about Tony’s closed-off stance, or his face turned away, or the slouch in his posture, for it gets even closer and steps around him, so they can stand in his line of vision, even as they look over him towards the wreckage long meters ahead, to the remains of the ship of the alien who tried to kidnap Strange.

“Is there a ship we can use?” They ask, probably assessing, just as Tony has, that the ship is beyond salvation, even for him.

“It’s completely broken.” Tony points out, unable to sound mocking as he wishes he could. It simply comes out flat and emotionless, helpless.

“Not completely.” The being contradicts but doesn’t press, not actually trying to offer a solution, just being contrary to his words. Tony gets the impression that much like Quill, this one also likes to disagree just for the sake of disagreeing. “You can work with machines. You fly a metal suit of armor.”

He wants to be rude and insult them in some way, but he can’t bring himself to do it. What would be the point? There is no point anymore. And it’s not like it isn’t true. The suit is right there – broken, distorted, scraps of metal and junk spread across the soil, the dirt and debris, and trapped around him like the universe’s most cruel of cages. The Guardian has seen him fight also, has seen the armor mold itself around Tony and respond to his commands, the symbiotic relationship between them, and Tony knows they are smart enough to know that Tony is the one who made it so.

Tony nods, but doesn’t supply any more information. Not because he’s wary. He just… He doesn’t feel like talking.

(Doesn’t feel like nothing at all.)

“The idiot, Quill.” The blue being reminds him, objectively, even when Tony doesn’t say a word. “He had a ship. It’s still around. We can use it to get out of here.”

“And where would we go?” Tony asks, exasperated, so utterly tired from being prodded and being exposed and being hurt that he unthinkingly raises his eyes, and his gaze locks with the blue being’s, and doesn’t let go. “What can we possibly do?”

“I don’t know.” The Guardian admits, a bit mournfully. “Somewhere else. Not here. That’s all that matters.”

So the Guardian has no place to go anymore.

But neither does he, isn’t that right? Neither does he.

(No, no.)

No.

Pepper. Happy. Rhodey. May. Fury. Hill. The Avengers.

There might still be some people left.

(There might not be. He might be truly alone this time.)

(Isn’t that how it goes?)

(They all die.)

(You don’t.)

“There might be—” Tony chokes, body flinching in sharp pain when he mindlessly tries to twist himself so he can look at his companion, the wound in his abdomen stretching painfully and probably starting to bleed again in his hasty movement. “On Earth. I need to— I need to go back. I need to know who’s left. I need to know.”

The being stares at him for a long, long time, before they give him the tiniest of nods, black eyes deep and endless, and locked on Tony’s without flinching. “Then get on the ship. We can go together.”

(Get on the ship.)

(Get up.)

(Get on the ship.)

Simple commands. Step by step. He can do that.

He knows how to do this. It’s not the first time Tony has had to tunnel his vision to make sure he wouldn’t freeze, it’s not the first time his brain betrays him and he has to make do with only the shell of what’s left behind, with only the leftovers… the scraps, of what he thought he had. Get up. Get on the ship. He thinks of no more than just this, just those two easy steps, and whatever might come next is a problem he won’t think about right now.

(But if they—)

No.

Stop.

Not right now.

Right now, he needs to get up, and get on the ship.

He struggles to find strength back on his legs, his muscles cramping and his knees painfully stiff, and his entire abdomen throbbing with a dull, low ache,  something that makes him feel oddly bloated, like he is expanding from the inside out until he bursts. He’s not really sure what’s happening to him anymore. Is he still bleeding inside? Maybe he is. It doesn’t feel like it, but how would he know?

The mesh is programmed to work similar to the armor, molding itself into his anatomical form both inside and out, using the chips he implanted on himself as guidelines – but mostly was programmed with external use in mind. Granted, the mesh wasn’t his idea, it was Dr. Cho’s – but Tony had to tweak with it a little bit, or else it wouldn’t work with the nanotech he used for the armor. He’s not sure if it responds the way he wanted to. He never got the chance to test it. And if the particles of the mesh are responsive as his armor is, and his armor is defective, how sure can Tony be that the mesh is in working condition?

The truth is, he can’t.

So he might be bleeding.

He might be dying.

Should he even bother?

(Get up.)

(Get on the ship.)

(Don’t think about it.)

(Just do it.)

He gets up with an immeasurable amount of difficulty, every joint protesting, every muscle ardently aching, and he takes the pain as both a focal point and a punishment, not letting himself stray from being extremely conscious of it, because he needs something – anything – to think about that is not just the silence, but also because he deserves it.

He isn’t really expecting it, but he is so exhausted he can’t even flinch when the Guardian steps forward and holds him by the elbow, surprisingly strong by a grip so unsteady, and helps him find his balance so he can stand. But Tony’s body—

His body is no longer cooperating, too weary and too confused by the shock and overwhelming strain, coordination compromised and wounds all over, and his knees try to give in as soon as he puts too much weight on them, gravity pulling him down fast, and he isn’t quick enough to steady himself on his own.

The Guardian immediately presses close to him and knocks their shoulder with his, using their body as a wall for Tony to support against, letting out a pained noise and a hard flinch when they collide – but the support is enough so Tony won’t fall straight into the rocks below if he tries to move. Tony thinks he might’ve hurt the Guardian somehow, even if his shoulder is the one that’s going to bloom in a deep purple bruise in a few hours if the sharp sting of a metal object hitting his deltoid is any indication, but he can’t manage to do anything but sigh in a small, shaky breath, even if only slightly relieved that the support allows him not to put his entire weight on his legs, that are starting to feel like jelly more and more, with every moment it passes.

He shudders involuntarily, closing his eyes for the briefest of seconds, taking in a breath and forcing himself to stay grounded, just for a few seconds more, to take it all in.

He forces himself to remember this.

(Remember this.)

The feeling of his body giving out on him. The pain in his abdomen. The ache in his chest. The fading warmth between his fingertips. The taste of death at the back of his tongue.

The realization that this is real.

(Remember this, as you remember Afghanistan.)

(As you remember the wormhole.)

(Ultron.)

(Siberia.)

(Remember this.)

Because even when Tony has nothing else, he has his nightmares, he has his demons, he has the voice at the back of his head, the one who still sounds like Yinsen, after all these years, the one who won’t let him give up no matter what. So Tony remembers. Not only because the world will not allow him to forget, but because he has to, because it is his duty, it’s his burden to carry, because it’s the weight of his choices and the shortcomings of his actions that led him to this.

He remembers.

Because Tony has to use whatever excuse he can find if he wants to keep going.

Even if that excuse is fueled by hate and rage and sorrow, and it makes him want to hurt himself a little more.

“Alright.” Tony groans, ignoring the way his arm trembles as he brings it to rest on his companion’s shoulder, taking in a breath to steel himself for whatever the hell it is to follow. “To the ship we go.”

In unsteady steps, he and the Guardian wobble towards Quill’s ship, away from sight, relocated to a place where Thanos couldn’t see it when he arrived. The way to it seems even longer now, not by his slow, dragging steps, but for the empty spaces by his side, by the lack of a presence that should be there, and Tony can feel the way death follows him around as he moves, making him feel twitchy and paranoid, urging him to look over his shoulder even when he knows he won’t find anything there.

He has no idea what makes him say what he says next – maybe he can’t stand the silence, maybe he is afraid of his own mind and what he’ll find there, maybe… Maybe he’s afraid he is alone –, but he ends up opening his mouth and speaking, even when he’s struggling a little to breathe with the wound on his belly.

“My name is Tony. Tony Stark.” Tony offers demurely, voice breaking when it travels through his scratched throat, parched mouth and blood-stained teeth. Despite all of that, when he looks at his companion, to the blue skin of the hands that are both soft and strong at his sides, to the pitch-black eyes and the mouth twisted on a frown, he hopes it comes off gentle, even if just a little bit, because he feels like he owes this to the Guardian.

Tony is—

He is craving connection.

He won’t beg for gentleness himself. He never does, or he will never admit that he does, because he knows better than to do so. He knows any pleas he might have will fall onto deaf ears. He has learned this ten years ago. And just as he did ten years ago, he will cling to the only presence he has by his side, he will keep himself grounded on the touch and on the words, even as the darkness of a cave or the vast quietness of space try to suffocate him, because he needs to remind himself that he is not alone. That although the body beside him is not human, it is living and breathing, it is an ally, and it is companionship, and Tony couldn’t ask for anything else right now.

He won’t beg for gentleness, not with his words.

But habit is hard to break. And Tony has always, always feared being alone.

“I know.” The being says lowly, after a brief pause. “I’m Nebula.”

“One of the Guardians?” Tony inquires, as kindly as he can, even as he lets out a pained grunt when an uneasy step makes him wobble and it stings in his stomach, and Nebula steadies him with a stronger grip at his elbow and a firm hand to his back.

Nebula looks at the rubble behind them for a moment, thoughtful and nostalgic, and then whispers, “Gamora’s sister.”

Gamora.

(Where is Gamora!?)

Quill’s girl.

Nebula’s sister.

“I’m sorry.” The words stumble out of Tony’s mouth, awkward and uncertain, but sincere – because he has no idea who this Gamora is, but he thinks she was probably someone to respect, if half the universe seems to be in a tirade to find her… or, he guesses, avenge her. “She probably—”, and then he stops.

Because what else can he say?

Nebula looks at him for a second, eyes just as mysterious and unknown as the stretch of darkness above them, around them, this endless, bottomless universe, that Tony has dreamt for years that would swallow him whole, and now it finally has—

And Tony shudders with the strength he can see in them, with the force Nebula seems to be able to carry even when she has apparently lost it all, a force not even the entire universe could contain.

“I’ll make him pay.” Nebula growls, and Tony, for a wild, thoughtless second, believes her. “Even if it’s the last thing I’ll do.”

 

The ship is apparently named Benatar. Tony finds that out when he manages to get inside the navigation system — which is weird and functions in a type of algorithm he has never seen before, something that seems to include a ternary logic instead of a binary one — and the main screen greets him with a bunch of information his overworked brain barely has enough strength to decipher. As far as functionality goes, Tony has no idea what this ship can do besides fly and shoot stuff, apparently, because he can’t recognize the symbols that make up its main structure, but for now, it is enough. From what he can guess from the graphs on the screen, there is enough fuel – Energy? Not exactly fuel, but not electric force either. Something else, something that lodges itself at the back of his brain for later inspection, even when Tony tells himself he will refuse to think about this day for a very, very long time – to last for a long trip, hopefully long enough until they can reach Earth.

But he can’t be sure.

(Does it matter?)

He can only hope it’s enough.

None of this is Tony’s usual playfield; after all, aircraft has always been much more up Rhodey’s alley than Tony’s – and don’t go there, Tony can’t think too much about that, he doesn’t want to think about the ugly, terrible possibilities of entertaining the thought of Rhodey for too long –, but by now, after Iron Man, he knows more than enough to make some very spot-on educated guesses. His knowledge of alien aircraft, however, is very limited, coming from observation of the Chitauri pods back in New York and the Flying Donut merely a few hours ago – and space travel has never been Tony’s favorite topic, so there is a lot of room for mistakes.

And he’ll be damned if this is not all his anxiety needs to pop its head over his shoulder, waiting, patient, hungry. Because Tony’s mistakes are never small. Tony’s mistakes are ever easy to fix.

He can’t fail at this.

He can’t fail anymore.

A lot of it it’s just guessing work, but once he recognizes a pattern of commands, a backlog including last known flight paths, he follows it back home to the main commands registered and finds a system of coordinates. It’s like the world’s most unnecessarily complicated GPS. There are some specific locations, recurring numbers showing up sometimes more than four times across the entire log, but unfortunately, Tony doesn’t know what any of them mean. He has no idea where they lead to.

“Do you know what those mean?” Tony croaks weakly, looking over his shoulder to look at the looming presence with him on the ship.

Nebula, who has been standing silently behind him, takes a few steps forward and looks at the panel thoughtfully for a few seconds, posture taut and expression closed off.

“I recognize some of it.” She admits. “But none of them is Terra.”

(Of course. Why would it be?)

“What should we follow?” Tony inquires, hoping Nebula, being the one who actually lived in space, would know something useful.

“None of it. I don’t think it’s worth it. Thanos has probably wiped out two of those locations already.” She explains, pointing to two recurring coordinates, making Tony feel more hopeless by the second.

“So what do we do?”

“We need something the ship can trace back to your planet.” She flicks her gaze at him, sharply, and Tony feels as she can see right through him, past armor, skin, flesh and all. “Your armor. Can you get the coordinates to Terra from it?”

“I don’t know.” Tony admits. He’s never had to, before. From a remote location with barely any power? Yes. From outer space? Never. “Can you?”

“It traveled all the way here with you.” Nebula points out. “It made the trajectory. We get trace it back using the mapping.”

The idea makes something unpleasant squirm inside Tony’s chest, the years-old, deep-seated instinct of protecting his heart from anything that might get too close, especially when that thing is of alien nature. “How?”

“Maw’s ship might have the coordinates, but the system must be working for me to be able to access it, and the ship is destroyed. So we need to access your armor using the ship’s tracking and follow the path back to where you came from.”

“Okay.” Tony exhales, overwhelmed, but no less confused. He asks again, “And how do we do that?”

“Put on the armor.”

(Step one, failed.)

“I kind of... can’t do that.”

Nebula frowns, which looks weird, because she has no eyebrows, but it still looks like one of the deepest scowls Tony has ever seen. “You could just fine a few hours ago.”

(Hours.)

(It’s been hours.)

Tony resists the childish impulse to shake his head, as if that would help him clear his thoughts any better, even when his thoughts will scatter all over the place anyway.

“I retracted it, but it moved awkwardly.” Tony confesses. “It froze when the blade went through it. It shouldn’t have done that. It was also trying to rearrange itself because it was losing particles too fast and I had to keep shifting it so it wouldn’t leave me exposed. It’s toast. If I try to put it on, the particles inside me might shift and—”

“Rip you open.”

Tony goes eerily quiet for a dark, tense moment. “Yeah.”

Nebula keeps staring at him, silently, and the feeling of pure dread that floods Tony’s insides is as primitive as the sound he makes when he exhales, something that’s so instinctive he can’t even try to stop it before it has already left his lips, low and afraid, anguished enough to alert her of his distress. He knows she is analyzing him. He knows that of all people who have ever seen the armor, Nebula is probably the one who could come close to figuring out how it works, simply because of what she is.

But at the same time, it worries him. And not for any logical reason, either.

(Half machine.)

If there’s anyone in this universe Tony could probably trust with this, it would be the android, wouldn’t it?

(But she—)

But she is half metal. Literally. Is it really translatable? Is Tony—

Should he really do this?

(I am not the armor. I’m not, I’m not.)

“Does it hurt you?” She asks in a quiet, almost breathless tone of voice, something that sounds almost regretful, like she fears the answer Tony might give. “If we try to connect your armor to the ship?”

Tony answers shakily, “It shouldn’t.”

Nebula looks him up and down, quickly, eyes still so hard and unwavering, even when her voice is softer. “If it’s not attached to you, you can take it off, can’t you?”

“I can, but I don’t know what will happen to the internal structure.” Tony admits, and he has to cough to ease the sudden tightness in his throat, the words that get half stuck in his esophagus when he forces them out. “Right now, it’s kind of holding my stomach together. If I remove it, the particles of the mesh recede. I’ll start bleeding again.”

Nebula makes a thoughtful pause. “What is it powered by?”

(My heart.)

“Nanine compartment.” Tony taps at the triangle-shaped compartment on his chest, and the glass makes a small clink, clink sound, a dangerous indicator that something is not as firmly attached as it should be.

“Self-sustainable?” Nebula asks, unsurprisingly sharp, and Tony tries very hard not to think about how half her body is made of metal, and she is probably just as familiar with inner workings of mechanic body parts as he is. Maybe more. Even more than that, he tries not to think what it means, that she is so casual about mentioning removing a part of it, as if she knows exactly what she’s asking of Tony, intimately, personally.

“Yeah.”

“We can make it lock it onto you.” Nebula wonders aloud a second option. “We connect it to the ship, redirect the pulses from the turbines to your armor, and shock it into working again. The extra energy will lock it in place. It won’t move.”

It sounds like a good enough plan, except—

(It would kill me.)

(My heart can’t take shocks.)

For some reason, Tony doesn’t warn her to that fact. His mouth opens, gaping like a fish, but no sound actually comes out.

(But I have to.)

She can also see the way he hesitates even harder at the suggestion, his shoulders tense and mouth tightly closed, and although he can’t see himself, the moment the flash of a dark, dark tub and the phantom spasm his body gives, the memory of a bright, stinging shock, blooming from his chest into his limbs, the discharge of a car battery lodged in a place it shouldn’t be.

“Is it part of you?” Nebula whispers, eyes locked on the blue hue of Tony’s nanite compartment, the bright light reflecting on her skin in a bright, almost neon shade. Ironically, the word that comes to Tony’s mind is otherworldly. “Do you feel it?”

Tony gulps around nothing, mouth dry and knees unstable, and he says, “A little.”

She looks at him with stormy eyes—

(Half machine.)

(Does she know?)

(Does she know how it feels?)

(Does she—)

“But if we adjust the charge—” Tony begins.

“How much?” She presses.

She’s not asking about the charge. Tony knows. The way her eyes lock onto his form, scanning and assessing, taking in every detail the same way he does when he finds a piece of tech he can’t comprehend, Nebula is trying to reverse engineer him in her head, trying to figure out exactly how much of Tony is the armor, and how much of Tony is Tony.

After a heartbeat, Tony raises one hand, palm up, pulling back his tracksuit so he can expose the inside of his forearm to Nebula to inspect, despite the fact that the marks have long faded away, many, many months ago. But he can still feel them, if he shifts it just right. Sometimes, he does. To remind himself he’s got the armor with him. That he isn’t helpless, not technically.

“It’s in my body.” He explains, running his fingers along the line of his veins, tapping lightly at a soft spot of flesh right above his wrist. “It’s detachable, but it only works because it's inside me. I have tracking chips and motion sensors adapted to my anatomy and biological markings. I can remove it, but I can’t be sure the shock won’t cause an explosive feedback and fry the chips inside me. And my heart is not good. Electric discharge might make it stutter and stop.”

Nebula makes a long, heavy pause, considering Tony’s words, and Tony is so desperate to get out of here, get out of this place, that he almost tells her to do it anyway, despite the risk of pushing him into cardiac arrest. He can almost hear the cogs in Nebula’s brain turning – and isn’t that the most ironic expression right now? –, furiously, and Tony, for a second, is afraid that she’ll ask him to remove them, every single one, so they can use his Arc—

His nanite compartment, to attach it to the ship and find the coordinates anyway.

But she surprises him. Instead, she comes up with another option.

“We can connect you to the command board.” She offers, and Tony is horrified to realize she sounds like she’s at the end of her rope, like this is the very last option she can give him, and it’s either this or nothing else. “And I’ll have to work with it attached to you. It’ll probably drain the energy entirely, slowly. It’ll stop working gradually. We might make it before you bleed out.”

Might. That’s… not good.

“How long do you think it should take us to reach Earth?” Tony breathes.

“I don’t know.” Nebula admits. “I don’t know exactly where it is, but using the energy that’s left in the ship and whatever extra energy we should take out of you, two jumps should be enough.”

Tony has no idea what kind of measure is jumps, but it sounds like bad news.

“And that’s a long time?” He presses.

“Not long, but exhausting.” Nebula gravely explains. “Requires a lot of energy.”

Which means that it’ll drain Tony’s energy faster, which will cause the armor to fail faster, and make the mesh particles recede faster. And it’ll kill him. But if they go too slow, the residual titanium levels will start to poison him from the inside out, and it’ll kill him, or he might simply bleed out anyway.

“So… We have to be fast, but not too fast, or else I die all the same. Fun.” Tony goes for a joking tone, and he very nearly succeeds, but he injects too much exasperation into it, at it makes him sound hysterical.  “Can we do that? A happy middle ground?”

Nebula throws him a look like she wants to strangle him, nevermind they have just gone three different plans just so they can avoid Tony dying too soon. “Why is your armor so lethal to your body? It’s supposed to be a part of you.”

(I’m not the armor—)

(Because it’s all I do.)

(Stop it.)

“I wasn’t planning on getting stabbed.” Tony exasperatedly exclaims, not really answering the question.

Nebula completely ignores him, pulling him up by his bicep and sitting him down on the bench behind the pilot’s chair, to then pull out a bunch of cables from under the control panel and bring them all closer to Tony, as if she’s planning to plug him in like a damn USB cord or something, impatient.

“No, no.” Tony stops her with frantic gestures, stealing the cables from her hand, hiding them behind himself. “I’ll do that. You go to the chair and get ready to get the coordinates. No one messes with my nanite compartment besides me.”

Nebula mutters something that sounds awfully like suit yourself – which is funny, but also uncalled for – and Tony frowns disapprovingly at her despite the fact that she turns her back at him, heading to the chair impassively, not even trying to peek at Tony as she does so.

Tony stares at the back of her head for a few seconds, not exactly suspicious; But still, instinctively wary, and only when she doesn’t turn back at all Tony feels comfortable enough to bring his hand around the casing of the compartment and pressing into the safety locks, popping the front open and exposing the inner workings of it so he can work on connecting all the cables correctly himself, trying not to damage it further on the process.

His hands are far too big for such delicate work, however. Thoughtlessly, he leans forward and grabs a toolbox from the side of the panel, pretending he doesn’t wince when the skin over his ribs pulls taut and the edges of his stab wound when he does, swallowing his whine back down to avoid alerting Nebula and making her turn around.  It’s not very effective, because he still grunts when he shifts back into a seated position, but Nebula doesn’t turn around anyway, and Tony feels a rush of something that is far too close to gratitude run through him; And he stomps it down quickly, not allowing himself to dwell on it for too long.

It’s ridiculous, in a way that is comforting and mocking at the same time, the way that his trembling hands immediately turn steady when he closes his fingers around a tool. Tony takes in a deep breath before he can start working, just as he always does when he needs to mess with the Reactor – the nanite compartment, damn it, is that so hard to remember? – while it’s still attached to him. It makes him nervous, it always does, but by now, Tony has learned to work through it anyway. It was a necessity. He has no time to feel uncomfortable, to think about caves and explosions and phantom presences by his shoulder, when his heart literally depended on it for over six years.

It’s meticulous work. With Tony, everything is.

For some time, he allows himself to lose focus to the detailed work beneath his fingertips, to the familiar motions of connecting and rearranging, of running calculations, and he can pretend everything is fine. No, not fine, but maybe, it’s fixable. Like his nanite compartment. Maybe, if Tony tries a little harder, if he pushes himself a little further, he can find a way out of this, the same way he found a way out of that cave ten years ago.

(How?)

(How will he do that?)

(How much more can he give?)

He doesn’t know.

(He lost the kid.)

(God, fuck—)

(He lost everything—)

But he has to try.

He has to try, he tells himself as he tweaks with tools and wires, the only things that can make his mind calm down these days. He has to try, he tells himself as takes apart and builds back up the same object, over and over and over again, restless in his quest for improvement, for progress, for a solution. He has to try, he tells himself, as he tinkers with his metaphorical heart one more time, rearranging it and forcing it back together, to hold on for one more day, one more time, just for a little while longer.

He makes it work. After all, he has done more with much less in the past.

But before he can attach the cable and literally connect himself to an unknown ship, something makes him stop – a question that flickers in his mind, the old, gravelly voice that’s always at the back of Tony’s head, always whispering things to him, and he freezes millimeters away of possibly making another irreparable mistake.

“If you can access the travel path from the command panel”, Tony hesitantly inquires, knowing Nebula is paying attention even though she hasn’t turned around ever since she sat at the pilot’s chair. “What else can you access?”

“Nothing else that I care about.” Nebula smoothly responds, and then says nothing else.

(Don’t trust her.)

But Tony has to—

(Don’t give the secrets of your armor to the alien android, are you an idiot—)

But—

(Remember Ultron.)

(Do you want to remember this as you remember Ultron?)

(How many more deaths do you want to cause—)

He has to try.

How else will he get out of here? He has no other choice.

He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to.

But he has to.

“Ok.” Tony braces himself, pretending he can’t hear the tiny whistle his nostrils give when he takes in a deep, careful breath, willing his hands to remain steady for this. For this decision. For this… whatever the hell this is. “Let’s see if it works.”

Tony attaches the cable, and hopes this entire thing doesn’t blow up in his face.

For a second, nothing happens. He looks down at his nanite compartment, flabbergasted, relieved, disappointed, what the hell—

And then it flickers in a burst of light, something quick and energized that Tony feels all the way down to the marrow of his bones, a pulse of energy running through every single spot of his body where a tracking chip of the suit is hidden underneath his skin – oh God, will it fry it all? –, the compartment whirs and glows – it’ll shock him, fuck, fuck, will it shock him, he’ll die –, and, suddenly, it settles, steady and calm, making a low hum constantly resonate against Tony’s chest.

The air gets stuck in Tony’s lungs, his entire body dead still and stone cold, suspended in time, like the second before a bomb explodes—

“Got it.” Nebula calls, startling him – and oh, thank fuck, yes, finally, the panels in front of her light up with all kinds of info, star maps, and coordinates, and all Tony can think is we can leave, I didn’t die, oh God, we can leave, we can go home.        

“Good.” Tony nods, pretending he can’t hear how winded he sounds, that he almost went completely insane and drove himself into a panic attack just because of that scare. “Can’t wait to leave this place. Do we get to watch a movie during the flight? Or it’s not available to economic class?”

“It won’t take long.” Nebula assures, also blatantly ignoring his deflection, all business and no-nonsense as she types in instructions on the command board, fast as lightning, giving him an odd feeling of déjà vu, of himself, lost in an hours-long binge in his workshop, lost to numbers and equations, shutting all emotions out. “You’ll live.”

(Might.)

Might live, he reminds himself.

But beggars can’t be choosers, he supposes. Not much he can do now, except sit here, with his chest attached to the ship like he’s a damned power bank or something, and hope for the best.

They set the route to the general direction of the Earth, somewhere around the place Squidward's ship had taken impulse and flown away, because that’s as far as the signal of the armor can lead them to – And he thinks about how fucked up that is, that he is so far away that he has left his planet far enough that he doesn’t know how to get back to it. It’s terrifying, how far away from home he is, lost amidst stars that are too quiet, the endless, terrifying darkness, the very same Tony sometimes still dreams about when he tries to sleep.

(Don’t think about it.)

(Just don’t.)

Nebula checks his commands and the weird, jumbled map the screen presents them, and tells him it’s good enough for now and lets the ship be. The journey will take a while, she says.

That means Tony has plenty of time alone with his thoughts, which is the last thing he wants right now.

(Don’t think about it.)

(But the kid—)

(Don’t.)

Nebula gets up from the chair and moves to the side, the panel illuminating her from behind like a holy image, a halo of bursting colors and shifting brightness, a display that is almost mockingly beautiful for a scene so sad. Tony watches her move curiously, forcing himself to focus on her movement and not on the shadows that lurk behind his eyes, burning in his retinas, the memories that will fuel his nightmares forever, if he ever gets to sleep again.

He notices she’s holding her arm by her elbow, not just placing a gentle hand on it but actually holding it, lifting it a bit, as if she’s trying to keep it from falling and completely detaching from her shoulder. It’s the shoulder Tony knocked into when he wobbled and nearly fell when he tried to get up, he realizes. Shit, he probably detached something of hers because of the impact. Just like the rest for her, it looks made of half flesh, half metal, so her joints are probably mechanic too—

And for a second, he wonders how deep it goes, the metal, if the steel in her spine is metaphorical or literal, and if that has any bearing in the way she holds herself together even though, like Tony, her life seems to have pretty much been completely wiped away with a snap of Thanos’ fingers.

He wonders if it would even make a difference. Probably not. The metal Tony carries in his veins is completely artificial, residues of procedures and purposefully injected nanoparticles to keep the suit properly attached, tricks he developed to steel himself for things stronger than him, to make him feel a little less useless than he truly is. Nebula though – Nebula is all metal, inside and out. Spine, veins and body, mind and will, everything Tony tried to build himself into and never quite managed it.

Is it weird, that he feels oddly… connected to her, in that manner? He doesn’t really know her. Tony knows that his feelings are all jumbled and messed up right now, and they probably will never be alright again, and he knows about bonding in captivity, far too much, even though this is not really captivity—

(Stop it.)

But – But Tony could have easily been Nebula. Still could. How ironic is that, him being trapped with a being that is half-made of metal, when Tony, even today, when he tries to take his time and step away from his work-binges more often and care more about real people, about Pepper, about the kid…

(Don’t.)

(Don’t think about the kid. Don’t think about Pepper either. Not yet.)

Tony is still very much dedicated to his work as Iron Man and to the armor. More than Pepper would like. More than it’s healthy, probably. He didn’t… He didn’t really need the nanite compartment, biologically speaking. But he did it anyway. Because Tony needed to be ready, even if he’ll never truly be, and he needs to have metal in him to keep himself together or else he always, always feels exposed.

How long, until Tony turns himself into something like Nebula?

Can he stop it from happening? Now? After this?

Can he really let go of the guilt and pretend everything is fine, that he can’t fight anymore, and let it go?

(Do you even want to?)

He exhales shakily, biting the inside of his cheek, and looks back at Nebula, unable to stop himself.

Tony knows he’s probably not being as discreet as he should with his staring, but he doesn’t really care, even if he’s being intense enough that it makes Nebula raise her gaze and look at him uncomfortably, her entire face scrunched up.

“What?” Nebula growls, voice rough and scratchy, but her eyes are tired and her complexion almost sickly, so weird, so new, Tony has never seen a machine like her before—

“Want me to take a look at that arm?” Tony easily suggests, the thought not even making itself clear in his head before he’s blurting it out.

“Worry about your own wound.” Nebula prickly responds.

“There’s not much I can do.” Tony admits, and he sounds pathetic. Small and fragile, and he hates it. “I don’t have anything else to close the cut. I might still be bleeding inside.”

That makes Nebula’s eyes gleam dangerously, like she is a dog who is seconds away from trying to bite him. “Then stop moving. You might die.”

(Who cares at this point?)

Nebula cares, apparently. Maybe. To some extent.

But what is Tony Stark next to the trillions who have just passed? Who is he, a mere speck of nothingness in the middle of space, empty inside, with no strength and no purpose anymore? He could’ve gone with the others, turned into dust, and what difference would that make? None. Tony might die inside this spaceship, bleeding out slowly, long before they even reach Earth, much less reach help.

(Who knows?)

(Who cares.)

He doesn’t find it despairing. He doesn’t find it comforting.

He doesn’t feel anything but dread.

“As I said.” Tony gives a light shrug, pressing his lips into a hard line for a brief second. It makes his jaw tighten, and all his gums hurt when he does so, all the way up to the insides of his skull. “Not much I can do. But I can fix that arm.”

Nebula scowls, a little less aggressively than Tony would expect, but it’s still a scowl. “And leave me alone to fly this ship to Terra?”

“Would you rather do it with one hand or two?” Tony arches up his brows, cockily.

“You won’t die.” Nebula says after a huff, and it sounds like an order. “I’m not flying this ship alone.”

Tony almost wants to tell her she might not have a choice.

(You can do it.)

(You’re made of iron.)

(More than I am.)

Instead, he reaches again for the toolbox, pulling it to his lap, and he scoots over to the right to leave more space free on the bench beside him.

“Get over here, C-3PO.” He calls, beckoning her closer with a lazy gesture of his hand. “We have all the time in the world.”

 

(That is not true.)

 

Tony fixes Nebula’s arm. She doesn’t say thank you.

Then, she brings him something that looks like chips, and tells him to eat. Tony also doesn’t say thank you.

They are not good with kindness, it seems.

One more thing they have in common after all.

 

(That is not true.)

 

Tony starts to get a little faint after some time.

He’s not sure exactly how long. It feels like a couple of hours, but by the battered state of his body and the completely drained state of his mind, he can’t be sure. It starts off slow. At first, he thinks it’s just his body losing the adrenaline, his muscles going numb and him losing all feeling of his toes and fingers, his eyelids getting surprisingly heavy every time he tries to keep them open. He passes off as sleepiness, despite him knowing the numbness is not normal. But for safety’s sake, he tries to keep himself awake, observing the ever-shifting numbers on the panels of the Benatar, even when they start to make even less sense than they did before.

All he knows is that one second, he is fine—

And in the other, when he blinks, tiny sparks of white burst behind his eyelids, and the entire world just tilts right in front of his eyes and he gasps when he feels his body swaying and leaning too much to the left, and he almost loses balance on the chair and falls down to the floor.

“Stark.” Nebula warns, startled, and she extends a hand fast enough to grip him by the shoulder, pushing him back into his seated position, and the entire world goes white for a moment before it shifts back into place, except now it’s all rotating around him.

“I’m okay.” Tony reassures her, holding himself with a strong grip at the seat, even when his body starts to drop in the same direction, his spine losing all strength bit by bit. “Just a little dizzy.”

“Did it shift?” Nebula asks, and Tony, for a second, has no idea what she’s talking about, until she comes forward, eyes sharp on the wound in his belly as crouches in front of him, voice urgent. “Is it cutting you?”

“Might just be the blood loss.” Tony points out, unhelpfully, distantly realizing he’s sounding a little slurred, and his sweat feels cold. It’s clamming at the back of his neck and going down his lower back, his hands starting to tremble a little. “Are you cold? Or is it just me?”

Nebula lets out a harsh sound, something Tony recognizes as a curse even if he can’t tell what language it was uttered in; And she gets up and starts rummaging through cabinets and compartments and cluttered surfaces, until she finds a big, checkered blanket dropped on the floor, and hastily grabs it and brings it back to the front of the ship.

“Do you even feel cold?” Tony stupidly asks, mind going fuzzy, and his tongue suddenly feeling very, very loose. It’s never a good sign. Tony knows he gets very chatty when he’s about to lose consciousness. Rhodey has complained about it many, many times – no, no, don’t think about Rhodey, don’t –, since Tony had been young and stupid and drunk at MIT.

He’s going to black out soon.

(And might not wake up after.)

He can’t even muster the energy to be concerned about the idea.

“Barely.” Nebula curtly replies, before almost smothering Tony with the blanket by how much strength she uses to wrap it around him, pressing the edges of it to his hands firmly. “Hold tight.”

Tony does, unconsciously, but before Tony can ask her what she means by barely, she gets up and stalks to the command board, her strides full or purpose, and she sits down on the pilot chair and starts pressing so man buttons that Tony can’t even begin to guess what she’s doing.

“Must be nice.” He deliriously mutters, head lolling back, hitting the wall behind him with a dull sound that somehow vibrates all the way inside of his temples. “Not feeling cold.”

The sound keeps echoing in his head, even when the metal plate of the wall behind him stops vibrating with the impact. It sounds weird. A dull, distant sound of a hard plate, so tangible Tony can almost feel the way it crawls inside his brain like a worm, finding a place to nest deep inside his cortex.

It makes him— it makes him anxious. Anguished.

Dull metal sounds. A hard hit. Vibrating all the way down to his bones.

His eyesight starts to get dark at the edges, like a bad photo filter, and in a completely stupid move to keep himself awake, Tony brings his heavy, heavy head forward and slams it back again, much softer than he’s intended, because his neck can’t seem to be firm enough to hold the weight of his skull after all. But sure enough— There it is, the distant, dull sound, something that Tony seems to hear not by his ears, but by the back of his head, like it comes from the inside, and for some reason it hurts and it makes him want to close his eyes and disappear.

When he does, and the world goes black, he immediately regrets it.

(It’s cold.)

“Wake up.”

A burst of pain jolts him back awake, a hot, stinging sensation at his left cheek, not enough to hurt all the way to his teeth and jaw, but more than enough to make him startle and open his eyes.

“What?” Tony babbles.

Nebula gives him two more slaps, strong enough to sting, to make sure he stays awake. “We can land. Tell me where to land.”

“Where are we?” Tony asks, confused.

He just wants to close his eyes for a second. His head is still vibrating. It hurts.

Tony Stark.” Nebula snarls, shaking him by the shoulders. “Answer me. Where do we land?”

Where do they land? Land what?

He doesn’t know. How could he know?

“Where were you last?” Nebula asks, loud and harsh, like she is screaming. “Before Maw brought you to his ship. Where were you?”

Why is she screaming? If she wants to talk to him, she can get closer.

(Why is she so far away?)

“New York.” Tony hazily remembers, after a long, long struggle to think over his haze, trying to keep himself focused, to no avail. But New York seems like the right answer, right? New York is home. Pepper is in New York—

(Don’t think about Pepper.)

Why is he not supposed to think about Pepper?

He can’t remember.

The hands on his shoulders disappear suddenly, and Tony has a brief moment of the most complete, absolute panic, the lack of touch as terrifying as the darkness outside the windows, as the silence surrounding him – And when a jolt makes something in his chest pull forward, a tug that comes straight from the place where is Arc Reactor, his heart is, Tony descends into nearly full panic, eyes wide and heart hammering inside his bruised ribcage; But even when he tries to raise his hands and grasp the hands again, his body doesn’t even respond enough to make him drop the edges of the blanket between his numb fingers, and his movement is so awkward it actually makes him tilt, losing balance, and he doesn’t have the strength to push himself back into position again.

Tony is slipping, his vision is getting blurry and his body is so, so heavy, his arms and legs tingling, and he will never know if he hit his head on the bench on his way down, because before he could tip over completely, he goes out like a light.

 

Iron Man, he thinks he hears someone say.

It’s a scream. A desperate, horrified scream.

Iron Man!

Tony doesn’t know what it means.

There is no Iron Man here.

There is only Tony.

Frail, sluggish, dying.

(Stupid, stupid Tony.)

 

“Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark, can you hear me?”

(Mr. Stark?)

(I don’t feel so good.)

“Mr. Stark, can you hear me?”

No. Tony doesn’t want to hear it.

 

He wakes up, eventually.

It takes a while. He remembers flashes of color and light, of cold, of pain, of voices he’ll never hear again, but it all fades to black so fast he can’t make anything of it until it’s too late. When he finally wakes up for longer than two minutes, it’s slow, drawn-out, like dragging himself outside a hole in the sand with his bare hands, fingers slipping constantly between the grains, a struggle and a punishment.

But he does wake up.

That’s a marvel in itself, he supposes. No wakes up fine, or wakes up hazy or miserable. He simply… wakes. Besides feeling aware, he doesn’t feel anything else at all.

He doesn’t recognize his location. He’s laying down on something hard, a little chilly, and there’s a blanket thrown over him, but it’s not doing much considering the cold feeling is coming from under him, not above.  For a small fraction of a second, something inside him tells him he should panic, and he immediately looks down, at his chest, expecting to find it once again connected to a car battery, full of shrapnel and scars, bruised black and blue; But although there’s blue, the shape is different, the size is different, and Tony lets out his breath in a painfully relieved rush, sagging back against his bed – because it is a bed, it’s a hospital bed –, and for an instant, he revels in the feeling that he can breathe at all. His abdomen is wrapped up in bandages, clean and white, not bleeding, and he allows his head to fall back and rest against the cold cot under him, blinking away the tears that wallow in his eyes in a far too vulnerable discharge of adrenaline.

“I said you wouldn’t die.” A voice tells him, not smug, but close, and Tony’s eyes snap to the left and he’s caught totally off guard by the blue alien android by his bedside; Who Tony knew it wasn’t a hallucination but could very well try to convince himself it was, had he woken up alone.

(Nebula.)

(Guardian. Android. Gamora’s sister.)

(Nebula.)

You stayed, Tony almost blurts out, and stops himself at the last second by biting the tip of his tongue forcefully.

(Why?)

“Looks like it.” He says instead, and all his smugness is completely overshadowed by how entirely awful he sounds, scratchy and dry, like he just swallowed sandpaper. “Where are we?”

“Hospital.” Nebula answers, and her mouth wraps around the word with slight discomfort, as if it is unusual to her. “New York. Where you told me to land.”

Tony almost wants to press her for more details, because yes, a hospital, but which one?, but he knows it’ll be futile. Nebula won’t be able to tell him which one. She’s an alien. Tony looks around for himself, trying to gather any details that could help him decipher this enigma – although he knows that he, of all people, will be the least likely to recognize a hospital, considering he avoids them like the plague, except for when he visits children at their wards.

(Stop thinking about children.)

(Don’t.)

Actually, when Tony looks around, he realizes he’s not even in a room. He’s in a corridor. He’s at the end of a long hall, close to a door that says 3.14 and with no visible doctors or nurses or even other patients nearby. There’s a lot of noise coming from somewhere far away, a lot of voices and some cries, babies and adults alike, and the constant rustle of movement and footsteps all around.

Tony immediately knows the hospital is full. He can’t see anyone besides Nebula, but he knows. He knows what chaos sounds like. Why he’s at a corridor and not a room also tells him something – when he arrived, the rooms were already full. Nebula was probably the one who brought him here, to isolate him from all the others, not trusting the other patients and maybe not even the staff—

“Do you feel pain?” Nebula asks after a beat, almost as an afterthought, interrupting his line of logic harshly.

Tony makes a pause, surprised, both at her tone and at his own lack of worry or discomfort. “Not… right now.”

“Then they probably did something right.” Nebula comments, slightly more satisfied. “I thought you’d die for a moment.”

Tony’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, and he looks at her “At least you’re honest.”

(Why did you stay?)

How is… How is Nebula here? People know she’s here, right? She’s literally right by his bed, even though the corridor is empty. People have certainly seen her. How did no one freak out by the sight of a blue android alien walking around with Tony wounded, after all the shit New York has been through? Did Nebula fight anyone so they’d let them in? It sounds like something she might’ve done. But nothing seems broken, not as far as Tony can see, and Tony definitely feels the heavy, sluggish feeling he always feels after a night or two at a hospital, the weight only a drug-induced slumber can cause, so he’s been here for a while.

How the hell did they get in here?

Did someone help them? Did anyone—

Tony jolts in bed, his whole body painfully spasming in shock, startling Nebula by his side.

Pepper.” Tony coughs, struggling to speak past the flaring pain that bursts all over his body, his muscles all unprepared for the sudden movement. “Rhodey. Shit, where are they!?”

“Stark, calm down.” Nebula orders, pushing him back down by his shoulder and hip, trying to stop Tony from rolling over the edge of the bed as he intends to. “You’ll open your stitches. Stop it!”

Half the universe.” Tony croaks, his heart beating wildly in his bruised chest, the heart monitor attached to him beeping loudly. “I have people— I need to know if they’re ok.”

Tony has to make it back to the Compound. He needs to find Pepper and Rhodey and Happy and – oh God, May Parker. Oh God.

(Pete—)

(No, no, not the kid—)

(Please, not the kid—)

“Can you help me get out of here?” Tony urgently asks, eyes wide and breath heaving, probably looking like a madman to Nebula.

“You want to escape?” She hisses back, narrowing her eyes. “Will they harm you?”

“No.” They would try to keep him out of harm, in fact, and they would keep him confined in this place for as long as they deemed necessary. And Tony can’t have that. “But I need to be somewhere else. I have to find my friends.”

Nebula assesses him with a careful gaze, and at least, she grants him the courtesy of not pointing out his friends might all be gone by now.

But she doesn’t need to. Tony knows.

“You’re here so you can heal.” Nebula points out, firmly.

“But I have people out there who might be hurt.” Tony snaps back, irritated.  

“If I help you escape and you die, Stark…” Nebula growls a threat, closing in over Tony threateningly, her face very close to his.

(Who cares, for fuck’s sake!)

But Nebula does. Or at least, she doesn’t want him dead.

She went through three different plans to make sure they wouldn’t pick one that would kill him when they tried to leave Titan. She gave him food. She gave him a way to keep himself warm. And she – she brought him to a hospital, even though she didn’t have to, so she could keep Tony alive.

Tony’s grateful, he is—

But—

“C’mon, Grumpy Smurf.” Tony insists, his tone weak and stuttering, pleading, because he needs to go. “Please? I’m gonna do it, with or without you, but I’d rather have some help.”

Nebula makes that sound again, the one who seems to be a curse, and retreats, exasperated. “Are you always this eager to maim yourself?”

(Yes.)

“All I need is a yes or no.” Tony ignores her question, pressing her further. “Nebula. C’mon.”

Nebula stares at him, divided, her face distorted in a hesitant frown, and Tony can’t wait for her answer and so he leans forward, ignoring how hard it is to do so with his abdomen immobilized, gripping the rails on the side of the bed with such force that his fingers turn white.

“I need to know if they’re alive.” Tony confesses, broken and helpless, and his heart squeezes so painfully inside his chest that the monitor goes wild.

Nebula reaches out quickly and unplugs the thing with a quick, deadly movement – half-breaking it, seems like, because instead of flat-lining the machine just goes completely silent – and looks back at Tony, looking two seconds away from wringing his neck.

“Alright.” She grumbles. “But you do as I say, you understand, Stark?”

“Crystal clear, Avatar.” Tony says, even if only to stop the sobbing thank you that tries to climb up his throat, along with the tears he’s trying so hard to ignore that are forming in the corners of his eyes. “You lead the way out, I do the rest.”

Notes:

Okay so, last minute warnings! If this is your first foray into my fics, I strongly recommend you check out the Part 1 of this series, which not only will give you an idea of how I usually go about my stories, but also includes a lot of important details to this part of the series. Of course, you can just roll with it, I certainly can’t stop you, but I’ve already begun filling in plot holes since part 1, so it’d be interesting to give that one a try as well. Fair warning though, if we have any very intense Team Cap members in the audience, it’s going to be tough for you. Just letting you know, I am Team Iron Man and it shows. There is a No Character Bashing tag there, but not everyone has the same reaction to it, I’m afraid. If it’s not your thing, just let it go.

Well, for a while at least. I mean, Civil War still happened. The boys are going to have to talk about it eventually.

Yes, CW is still relevant, even after the snap. What, did you think I would let it go, like the MCU has? No, friend. The MCU might be done, as they have no other use for it anymore, but I am not. And we will talk about it, extensively and carefully.

Also related to Part 1, I should also let you know there is going to be a very long discussion about Wanda somewhere down this road. It is heavily influenced by AoU, after all. So if we have any Wanda stans in the house, I assure you now that my intention is not to make a open hunting season on Wanda, but you might be bothered by some parts of this discussion. Some of it is not gonna be flattering. This is me letting you know in advance, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

But for now, this is it! Tony, my dear, I’ve missed you terribly. Sorry about that, but you’re gonna hurt for a while. For a good cause, I promise. For all of you who are desperate for our promised SteveTony reunion, fear not, it'll come eventually – but if you think I’m going to make it easy on them, think again. Thanos deals a hard blow, but their problems exist since way before that and I’m not using the space grape as an excuse to pretend five other movies haven’t happened. They have. And in this house, there will be no shoving our problems under the rug. You gotta learn how to use your words, boys. If we gotta do it the hard way, so be it.

So, to everyone who is new to this ride, welcome, and to those of you who came straight from Part 1, welcome back. We're starting off slow, but don't get too comfortable - I promised you an emotional rollercoaster, and I always keep my promises. I'm glad to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Notes:

Thank you all for the comments, kudos, and subscriptions during the first chapter! I'm glad you guys are excited to come on this journey with me! Let's get this party started, shall we?

You've seen the trailer, right? You must have. Just so you know, the trailer is the only reason why I'm updating this now, because this chapter was supposed to have two other scenes, but I can't say silent for the life of me so I need to mention a few things. So, SPOILERS AHEAD.

First of all, I want to remind you that this fic won't be Avengers: Endgame compliant. You can tell by the way it started. But not only that - just with the trailer I can already see many problems I'm gonna have with the plot of the movie, despite being very excited for it. I can already spot the inconsistencies. So, trailer or no trailer, the course of this work has not changed. And let me tell you - if my theory of what is going to happen in that movie is correct, this fic might actually be harder on Tony than the movie will be. You can't imagine how that realization makes me feel.

There is one thing in particular I'd like to mention that I feel like is essential to truly comprehend the differences in my approach and MCU's approach to A:E. Ironically, the issue is time. I've mentioned before that rumors have implied that the plot of this movie won't pick up until four years after the snap - and not only that, but in the very first minute of the trailer, we see Tony leave a voice message to Pepper, acknowledging he will die because he couldn't reach Earth on time. Do you know what this kind of moments causes? They cause what some people call regrets of the dying. The moment when you realize you're going to die and you can't stop it, many people - and I have no doubt in my mind that Tony is one of those people - simply let all their grudges and hesitations go. It's acceptance of death that causes complete surrender and erasure of past troubles.

But isn't that good, Machi?, you may ask. At least he'd die relieved.

No. That's not good. Not if you don't actually kill him. Why? Because there's way too many problems still left unaddressed, problems Tony WILL have to face eventually. He won't die in that spaceship. I know he won't. So giving him too much time to reach that acceptance is too dangerous to consider. If they shove this acceptance down Tony's throat, everything I feared will become true. CW will be ignored. The many instances where Tony has been mistreated will be ignored. There will be no redemption. There will be a fight, a vengeance, and nothing more.

I will not allow it.

I'm not making this hard on Tony because he deserves it. On the contrary - Tony deserves so much more than what I'm about to do to him. They all do. But not at the cost of something else he deserves, which is acknowledgment and closure; An honest, meaningful, real closure to all the problems he's faced so far. So this will be a hard journey. This will be painful. This will be horrible.

But I promise: this will be worth it.

So here it is, chapter two. Be careful, Tony's in a really bad place right now, and he's not gonna get better for a while. There are many moments in this chapter where he comes close to have an ANXIETY ATTACK and one moment in which he actually does, which happens right after "Tony takes in a huge breath (...)" and ends with "Tony blinks confusedly (...)". You can skip it if you want to, and you can check this symbol ! to read a description of what actually happens that causes Tony to have the attack, so you can understand his reasons.

But still, please be careful, and do be aware that while this fic has the intention of making this better, Tony's anxiety will be an issue we will talk about constantly, because it is important not only for his character but also for the story. I'm not giving him time to "deal" with it. I'm not giving him time to accept it or to get used to it. Not yet. Now is not the time. Not because he deserves to suffer - but because pain, guilt makes us do incredible things.

If you're in this for the long run, as I am, you should know that by now.

Marvel, that was a great trailer. I loved it, I truly did. Now, let me show you how I'd do it.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Escaping a hospital should never, ever, be as easy as it was.

It shouldn’t have been easy, really – Because one, he is severely injured, his entire torso stiff and aching, his body still torn from the attack of his own blade; And two, because Nebula is the less helpful partner for a stealth mission in the world, considering that she is, you know, blue.

But it is. It’s far too easy. The corridor in which Tony’s bed was cornered into was completely empty, ever since he woke up, and all doors across it are closed tight and never once moved. The lights are off, he belatedly notices. Far down the hall, where the corridor meets the circulation area, the fluorescent lights are on as they should be, and the walls and floor are so white they hurt his eyes. But the corridor, his corridor, is dark. Dim and secluded, a small space where he feels totally detached from the outside, a tiny piece of a world that feels like it shouldn’t exist.

A bubble suspended in time, too peaceful to be true.

The rustle and noise that indicate the presence of other people, although loud, is always too distant to be a concern. Or maybe extremely concerning, considering all things.  No one comes to check up on him. There are no footsteps sounding nearby. Besides Nebula and himself, the floor seems empty, and there are no handcuffs on his wrists or straps holding him down to prevent him from escaping.

Tony can simply get up and walk away.

It should not make him feel as frightened as it does.

(What happened?)

A bubble. Not true.                                                         

(What happened?)

He swings his legs to the side of the bed as awkwardly as a plastic doll, limbs locked with the unpleasant, fading sensation of muscle cramps, his bones heavy and balance altered by his unnatural posture. Nebula is forced to help him up again, ducking a little so she can wrap her hand around Tony’s wrist and pull it over her shoulders, her other hand wrapping around his back and settling right below the line of bandages across his torso, steadying him with almost military precision. Seeing as Nebula broke the heart monitor, the only sound echoing through the hall is Tony’s harsh breathing, the grunts that escape his lips when his sides ache just a little too painfully, his body too cold not to protest with the strenuous movement after so long just laying still.

It's like his bones are made of cheap plastic. How ironic, he thinks, as Nebula’s metal hand closes itself around his bruised forearm, and the pressure on the giant bruise there makes him flinch, just a little bit.

If Tony were in a better place – physically, mentally –, he’d crack a joke about his age. But there is not a single ounce of humor in him right now.

He is exhausted. He is just so…

He feels empty. Like he has cried everything he had inside him, and now there’s almost nothing left.

And whatever it is left, Tony doesn’t want to look at it.

He has no idea what he will find.

He gets up and looks down at himself again, trying to assess his own physical state, what sort of procedure he probably went through and how his recovery is going. He shouldn’t be walking, he knows that much, but since staying here is not an option, he will simply ignore that concern entirely. Other than that, his bandages seem to be in very nice condition, white and clean, and although there is pain, it’s not unbearable. It’s a surprise, considering how ugly the wound was. Far better than he was hoping to feel. They gave him the good stuff, it seems. He has no doubt one of the IV’s he just pulled off his arm contained morphine, even if just a small amount, by the gentle drowsiness enveloping his mind.

And he thinks—

(Thank God he’s clean.)

(Thank God.)

(At least this won’t be the thing that kills him.)

(Thank God.)

And that thought is frightening, because it is relief and disappointment in equal measure, it’s the anxiety and the adrenaline spiking up suddenly, and he doesn’t want to even begin to consider what would’ve happened to him had he been put into a coma due to morphine and a bunch of shots of whiskey combined.

After a long, shuddering breath, Tony blinks rapidly to regain his focus, realizing his heart has started to race and his chest has started tingling, and he needs to calm himself down, he needs to think about something else, he needs to focus on literally anything else other than that. He can feel what’s happening, he knows what this is, and he needs to stop it—

“How am I still wearing pants?” Tony muses out loud, nonsensically, and then, a beat later – legitimately confused, even if he still sounds a little winded. And it’s a good question. When he thinks about it, he has woken up in a hospital enough times to know he should’ve been wearing one of those flimsy hospital gowns, not sweatpants. These pants are not even his own. His tracksuit probably was torn off when he was rushed into surgery or something, as it is nowhere in sight, but whose pants are these?

Nebula shoots him an unimpressed look, as if he’s stupid, and she reaches down under the bed and pulls out Tony’s tracksuit, torn to shreds, and a shirt he has never seen before.

“Did you steal that?” Tony asks, baffled. “Who did you steal it from?”

Nebula doesn’t answer. She just shoves the shirt in Tony’s hands, who recognizes the gesture as the order it is, and he pulls it over his head and down his body with some slight difficulty, still half leaning on Nebula for support.

He kind of wants to insist on his question, but at the same time, he doesn’t. He wants to ask so many things—

(Why did she bring him clothes?)

(What does she want?)

(Why did she stay?)

But the words just won’t come out of his lips, that are dry and chapped, his mouth still tasting like a damned graveyard – and what does it matter? It doesn’t. It just doesn’t. It doesn’t matter how Nebula got these clothes. All that matters is that Tony is now awake, Nebula is still with him, and they can make a run for it. That’s all that should matter.

But even still, a small, wary part of his mind can’t stop wondering how and when she stole these, from whom, in what circumstances, and what the hell it all means, that she is doing this for him.

Tony has been unconscious, and he doesn’t know for how long; He can’t see a single soul besides Nebula, and he has no idea what he’ll find once he steps a foot outside this hospital – or even this corridor. The dread that creeps up behind him and swallows him whole is shivering, dark and ugly, making his fingers twitchy and brow sweaty, and he has to consciously calm himself down or else he will lock up and won’t be able to move.

Easy steps, he has to remember.

(Get up.)

(Get on the ship.)

He has to stay focused—

(Get up.)

(Leave the hospital.)

Or else he won’t move.

But he… he doesn’t want to. God, fuck, he doesn’t want to go out there. For all the unknowns Tony has ever faced, this is always the one thing that truly, honestly frightens Tony to his core. The very first second where he takes a step back and takes it all in, the extent of the damage, the consequences, and it all comes crashing down on him at once; The regret, the fear, the guilt, and Tony always tears himself apart when it happens, each time more destructive, each time having less and less to give in an attempt to save whatever is left.

(Half the universe is gone.)

Beyond these walls, half the universe is gone.

(And he couldn’t stop it.)

He doesn’t know what has happened to the world, outside this small, silent, fake shell of protection Nebula has crafted for him.

He doesn’t know if he can fix it.

He doesn’t know what else he has to give.

His hands are shaky as he dresses. Once he’s done, surprisingly, Nebula plasters herself back to his side, tightening her hand around his back, securing his wrist over her shoulder with a firm grip – showing him, without words, that she is ready to proceed, and she wants Tony to be alert for it.

“The windows don’t open.” She says, as if she’s giving him a report, the very same tone she used while they were inside the Benatar – the out-loud strategizing, going over possibilities and options at a quick pace, the very same way Tony does when he finds himself in a pinch. It makes something intense twinge inside his chest. Nebula probably doesn’t know their options here, and she is resorting to Tony’s knowledge of hospitals to find them a way out – like he had resorted to her, to help them escape Titan.

“It’s a hospital, of course not.” Tony automatically replies, falling into the familiar rhythm of arguing back and forth, of bringing up options and shooting them down at an almost instinctive pace. “And I wouldn’t be able to jump with my stomach cut open like a birthday cake anyway. Did you see any elevators around here?”

“Two, down this corridor and two turns to the left.” Nebula remembers, but then presents a counter-argument of her own. “But they lead to the entrance, and there are people there. We would be seen. I’m not sure what we will find on other floors, I had no time to patrol today.”

Tony has to pause for a second to properly compute the information that Nebula was planning on patrolling the hospital – today. Which implied she has done it before, while Tony was unconscious.

Once again, something that is not quite fondness, but it’s also not just surprise, floods Tony in a warm rush of sensation. It’s – It’s mindboggling, honestly, even if it happens over and over again, to see Nebula helping him for whatever reason. They don’t know each other. Not at all. Hell, Nebula had no reason to even help Tony escape Titan, and even if she did, just because Tony was already there and she might as well take him into the Benatar, she had no obligations to bring him to the hospital after they reached Earth. Much less stay with him until now. She is brash and she is snappish, her eyes are hard and scrutinizing, her hands are always firm, right at the edge between being certain or being forceful, like she will protect him even if he doesn’t want to, even if he doesn’t cooperate, because –

(Because she hasn’t done all this work just to let him die?)

It sounds like something she’d say.

(You’re not dying on me, Stark.)

Tony doesn’t know why.

He doesn’t know why she’d care.

He wonders—

(How this will backfire, in the future.)

(Because it will.)

(It always does.)

“Emergency stairs.” Tony says in a rush. “Close to the elevators. Did you see any?”

Nebula’s eyes gleam, hopeful, even when her expression doesn’t shift. “Yes. A door with a red bar on it.”

Tony gives her a curt nod, bracing himself more firmly on her shoulders – and if he ends up pulling her a little closer as he does it, it’s merely a consequence of the strength of his grip, nothing else – and he says:

“Stairs it is.”, and they walk together towards the emergency door.

It takes forever.

Tony’s steps are unsteady and his body uncooperative, even if with each step he takes, his blood begins to flow with more force to his unused limbs, his lungs getting used to the odd air inside de building, his hold on Nebula’s shoulders more certain than limp by the minute. It’s like his entire being is restarting after shutting down unexpectedly, and he should feel better—

But he doesn’t.

He feels like shit the entire way to the door, even as he divides his focus into keeping himself aware of his surroundings, looking over his and Nebula’s shoulders every few seconds, trying his best to make sure his footsteps won’t make a sound. He takes it all in – the emptiness, the upturned waiting benches and the scattered items on the reception balcony, the dim lights down the hall to the right, the ominous, scary feeling that there’s something, very, very wrong.

He sees no blood. Which is… something. This is always what he looks for first, it’s always the first evidence of an attack, but he sees no blood. He sees only chaos.

But he knows better now. He has seen what Thanos had done, he has seen the Guardians and Strange and the kid vanish, no trace left behind.

Tony sees no blood, but that does not mean that what he’s seeing isn’t a sign of death.

Nebula has to push open the emergency bar for him, because his hands aren’t strong enough. He’s probably starving, isn’t he? He can’t tell. He doesn’t feel anything in his stomach besides the ache. He sees the plaque as soon as Nebula’s hand pushes the bar and they swing open the heavy door – and the number 7 stares him back right in the face, mocking and daring, and Tony lets out a tired, anguished sigh. Seventh floor.

Fourteen flights of stairs then, and at a snail’s pace, awkwardly balancing himself on narrow steps and leaning heavily on Nebula’s side, injured and lacking nourishment.

Tony would’ve said this couldn’t get any worse, if he didn’t know that as soon as he steps a foot out of this place, it absolutely will.

“Okay, I have to ask. How did we get in here?” Tony grunts, not sure if he even should be talking as he descends the steps, because the combination of struggling to maintain his balance, calculating his steps, breathing as calmly as he can and also talking doesn’t seem to be a very good idea – but there he is, doing it anyway, because he’s nervous, he’s afraid, and he needs Nebula to talk about something that isn’t all the horrors Tony is imagining he will find outside. “How didn’t you get attacked when you showed up, with me dead on your arms?”

“You weren’t dead.” Nebula says, as if that’s an explanation.

Tony exhales slowly. “It’s a figure of speech, Smurfette. Do you know what those are?”

“I just said, you weren’t dead.” Nebula repeats, slightly annoyed. “They knew I hadn’t killed you, and I requested help. They knew I wanted to save you.”

(But why did you?)

“And that was it?” Tony incredulously replies. “No one tried to arrest you? Trap you somewhere? Interrogate you?

If there were even police officers nearby. Or security. Or anyone who could’ve helped Tony, in case Nebula hadn’t been an ally, but an enemy.

“They wanted to, but no one dared.” Nebula darkly admits. “I wouldn’t leave you unprotected. I told them so, and they stood down.”

Tony’s eyebrows raise almost to his hairline, his face all scrunched in confusion. “And that was all it took?”

Nebula gives him a hard, unforgiving stare. “I was either that or my knives.”

“Yeah, no, got it.” Tony hastily says, retreating immediately. “Good. No knives. No more knives or sharp objects of any kind from now on.”

Nebula seems pleased that he agrees. But as they continue to descend, Tony can’t help but keep wondering, brows still pinched together in confusion, trying to imagine how their landing must’ve played out. He doesn’t remember a thing, besides the vague sensation of distant voices and numbed touches on his skin. Also like he experienced it all from inside a thick glass cage, a layer of white noise that scrambled his senses, and nothing actually absorbed into his mind. He’s not sure if he should feel lucky or not.

He’s glad nothing seems to have gone wrong, he’s relieved, and Nebula isn’t worried or angry about anything – not any more than she seems to be on a regular basis –, so it all went well, it looks like. But at the same time…

At the same time, Tony still hates, hates the idea that he once again went through a surgery he wasn’t fully awake for, even though he doesn’t know if he wanted to be. He simply doesn’t know. His emotions are a mess, his still slightly groggy mind muddying the present and the past together, recalling with far too accuracy the feeling of the uncomfortable, unnatural heat he used to feel on his sternum when the car battery was still there, the bruises on his ribs and the bruises he sported for weeks into his captivity, his entire torso throbbing constantly, the same way it is now. It doesn’t hurt as much, this time around. He should be glad for that, he should be glad for the morphine, because at his first rodeo, he had nothing.

But still.

Still, the nagging sensation of wrongness knocks constantly at the back of his head, demanding his attention, making him feel nauseous and sickly, his sweat turning cold, and Nebula can feel it, because she squeezes her hands around him even tighter, unyielding.

“I didn’t know if they weren’t going to harm you.” Nebula quietly admits, as if it’s a weakness, and she should be ashamed of declaring there was something she didn’t know – and it almost makes her sound… not humble, but something close, something quiet and awkward and so incredibly human. “It was safer to threaten them, than to leave you exposed. I didn’t give them an opening, not for one second.”

And that sounds actually kind of sweet, until—

Tony’s eyes widen, almost hurting with the strain he feels at his nerves.  “You went into surgery with me?” He asks, so shocked he can’t even begin to comprehend the words that are ringing on his ears, their meaning making no sense, in any shape or form. He almost slips off the step, and he grips the railing hard and suddenly, and even his fingers ache with the movement.

Nebula gives him that look again, the one that makes Tony feels like he’s being an idiot, as if he should’ve known, as if that was only expected. “You were unconscious and I knew about the functioning of your biomarkers. They operated you on my instructions, or else you wouldn’t make it.”

And suddenly, Tony has the vivid imagery of Nebula barking orders at an intimidated, cowering team of surgeons, all of them struggling to hold their scalpels and other tools with steady hands, fear making them quake under Nebula’s dark glare. It’s fucking scary, the thought. Tony can only imagine how surreal it must have been for whoever operated him, to have a blue android looming over them, snarling and threatening, with a posture that promised terrible things to come if any of them so much as hurt Tony, after all she as gone through to save him.

Why the hell had they allowed it?

(Too afraid to kick her out? I mean, look at her.)

But Nebula did say they had needed instructions of his biomarkers, or else the mesh wouldn’t recede. Fuck, she probably tinkered with the nanite compartment too.

(Is it too late to be upset about it? Probably.)

(What would be the point, if she—)

(How the hell are you so comfortable with the alien android messing around with your heart?)

But they all just… Trusted the blue robot with Tony’s safety? Should they have? It worked out in the end, so… maybe? But Nebula didn’t actually know how the mesh worked, she just guessed it based on what Tony had told her on the Benatar and what she had seen during the fight against Thanos. Did she really figure it out entirely, based only on that? Did she—

Did she know how it worked? Does she work in a similar way?

Maybe she did. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe they opened Tony up and when they realized how messed up he is inside, when they saw the huge lump of the mesh rearranging itself inside Tony’s body to keep him from bleeding out – too much, at least –, they realized they wouldn’t be able to cut it out without killing him. And Nebula knew. Nebula knew the mesh responded to him, the same way the armor did. And she instructed them, not giving away too much — just enough, enough so they could help Tony, because Nebula is the wariest being Tony has ever met and she obviously didn’t trust anyone. She followed him into surgery, for fuck’s sake.

So she did. She guessed how it worked, how Tony worked, and she took the lead and guided the operation, she protected Tony, and they trusted her because—

Tony’s mind halts suddenly, his entire body giving a weird, aborted spasm mid-step, something that makes Nebula’s grasp on him get firm and secure once again, and it makes all kinds of alarms blare inside of Tony’s mind, loud and deafening and desperate, something instinctive and defensive and self-destructive all at once, something that makes Tony’s gut tighten so bad it almost makes him sick.

(Oh.)

(They thought—)

The world knows what Tony can do with machines. They think of him like a tech-whisperer. They had seen Tony create Iron Man, the Iron Legion, Ultron.

(Vision.)

Machines so real they seem alive.

(They probably thought—)

They thought Nebula was one of his’.

Nebula looks at him out of the corner of her eyes, and the movement is weird, as her eyes are almost solid black all the way through; But he can sense the motion, can feel her stare, heavy and scrutinizing, taking in details of the shift in his stance and movement so quickly he feels like a small animal, being observed by a predator.

“You were safe.” Nebula says, misinterpreting his sudden tense posture and raised shoulders as concern; And her words are not a comfort, but it’s close. It’s an offering of something, something gentler, something more thoughtful, something… more. “I made sure of it.”

Tony chokes on nothing when he tries to answer, and he has to try again.

“Somehow, I can’t doubt that.” Tony affirms, out of his depth, the breathlessness he feels far less related to his physical strain than he’d like to admit.

He wants to ask more, but the… the idea that just popped into his mind renders him speechless. He doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t. It’s not fair to Nebula, they don’t even know each other, not really, and Tony doesn’t want to allow himself to dwell too much on what are the unspoken connections he could so easily make between himself and her without even thinking about it.

No. No, he won’t do it. Stop it, Tony. Nebula isn’t his’.

She would probably punch him in the face if he ever dared to act like she was. Not that he would. Because he wouldn’t. She is not. Tony fixing her shoulder has nothing to do with it. It’s… It’s just what Tony does. He sees broken tech, he fixes it. That’s all. He’d just been paying back Nebula’s help, when she helped him into the ship. They are only helping each other survive this, and that is that.

They are together on this because they have no other choice, nothing more.

(Together.)

It’s ridiculous that anyone would think that Nebula is his’.

As if Tony could ever create something as… As unbreakable as Nebula.

So he says nothing, because it’s better if he doesn’t, and they continue to go down the stairs.

In the silence, their descent is even more disturbing. By the time they reach the third floor, the amount of noise Tony can hear has grown so loud, so sharp and distressing that his shoulders tense in a way it almost makes his back hurt. With every single step, every centimeter he gets closer to the exit, he gets more and more alert, more concerned, more panicked, his senses nearing overload so quick it almost seems to suck life right out of him. He wants to reach out, to tap his Reactor, just to make sure it works, so he isn’t defenseless, so he isn’t useless, but the mere presence of Nebula stops him from doing it. He doesn’t know why, but his hand won’t move.

“Did you—” Tony begins, but he immediately stops when he realizes that the words that are about to leave his lips will sound too much like an accusation. He’s been practicing on, you know, not doing that

(Because of the kid—)

And it’s for the best, because Nebula surely would have been offended if Tony had worded it like he almost did. She is kind of high-strung, he reminds himself, not exactly the warm and fuzzy kind of person. So he stops, and tries again.

“Does my Reactor still work?” Tony asks, quietly, and the very second Nebula’s brows furrow – she has no brows, that’s so weird, Tony’s only noticing that now –, he realizes he said the wrong name again, and has to explain himself. “The nanite compartment. If I try to activate it now, will it work?”

“It will, but you shouldn’t.” Nebula firmly says. “You are in no condition to fight.”

“I might not have a choice.” Tony stresses back, exasperated.

“No one will dare attack us. And if someone did, I can take them down alone.”

Tony gives out a little sarcastic hum, snorting. “Sounding a little arrogant there, Smurfette.”

Nebula halts for a brief second, staring at nothing, and her entire body goes stiff and defensive all at once. “I am one of the strongest people in the galaxy.” She hisses at nothing, not at Tony, even though she is speaking to him. But the bark on her tone, her bitterness, her anger – it is all reserved to something inside her head. Tony is all too familiar with it not to recognize it. “And I have fought worse than a few humans.”

And it’s probably true, so Tony can’t argue with her.

“I need to see if it’s ok anyway.” Tony insists. “I had my AI with me before I left Earth. The connection was severed when we breached the atmosphere – I need to try and reconnect, to see if she’s alright.”

“I have no tools with me.” Nebula points out.

Good point. Tony also doesn’t have anything on him he can use, and all he could maybe make work as a tool, he won’t be able to obtain unless they venture inside the hospital again and risk being seen.

“I need my workshop.” Tony realizes, breathing low and quiet, as the admission could cause chaos if uttered too loud.

Nebula nods, all business, no hesitation at all. “How do we get there?”

(We.)

(Together.)

“The Compound.” Tony affirms, shaking his head minutely to disperse the intrusive, frankly invasive thoughts. “I need to start on damage control, right away. Find out whoever is… left. Gather a team, get to work.”

Because that’s what Tony does. He fixes things to keep himself busy.

Simple steps.

(Get up.)

(Get on the ship.)

(Leave the hospital.)

(Fix this.)

“Where did you leave the ship?” Tony inquires, looking at Nebula with curious eyes.

“It’s still around here.” Nebula replies. “Behind the building.”

“You…” Tony stutters. “You left an alien spaceship on a hospital parking lot?”

“Isn’t it where you’re supposed to leave a vehicle?”

“Yeah, cars, not alien spaceships!” Tony exclaims. “What if someone destroyed it? What if someone stole it!?”

“You think a human would steal an alien spaceship?” Nebula throws back at him, full of snark.

“You see, that’s how I know you’ve never been to New York.” Tony quips back. “People around here steal everything.

He huffs, baffled, barely believing he actually just heard that. There’s an alien spaceship on the backyard. Oh God, there’s an alien spaceship on the backyard and it’s going to cause a fucking war. As soon as someone notices it there’s going to be screaming and rioting and Tony is injured, how is he going to explain Nebula’s presence to people?

But—

What if someone already has? What if someone has already seen it? It’s not small. Jesus fuck, what if someone really stole it?

(How long had that thing been left there? Long enough?)

And then, he stops. His horrified internal rant just… stops. Because Tony suddenly notices he still hasn’t asked one question, the question he fears the most, the one he thinks will probably break him one way or another, no matter what answer he might receive.

He doesn’t want to ask it.

It should’ve been the first thing out of his mouth. And it damned nearly was. It almost was, when Tony got up and looked down at himself and his heart went wild, going tight and beating too fast, spreading pain inside his chest and down his stupid left arm, and he nearly hyperventilated. So he put it away, and he didn’t ask.

But he has to.

He has to.

Not only because he needs to know if someone might’ve stolen their ship, but he needs to know—

“How long?” Tony whispers, a little shakily. “How long have I been here?”

“Nearly 58 hours.” Nebula says, and then, again, as an afterthought, “The days are faster here.”

Tony exhales heavily, something uneasy twisting in his stomach. “Over two days.”

Two days.

(Two days.)

Two days, and the air feels wrong. Two days, and the world is both too loud and too quiet, and he doesn’t see a single soul.

Two days isn’t that long.

(What happened outside these walls?)

“Did anyone come for me?” Tony asks breathlessly, hoping Nebula can’t feel the way his heart jumps inside his ribcage the same way he can, loud beats against the bone, like a fist pounding against his sternum trying to break him from the inside out. “Did anyone recognize me? Anyone?”

Nebula makes a pause, one that feels too heavy, too loaded, even when her reply is reasonable enough. “The medics who tended to you did. They screamed at you when you passed out, on the way to the operation. They called you Iron Man.”

Tony waits for a second, the silence torturous and the wait even more so, but Nebula doesn’t elaborate further. “No one else?”, he anxiously presses.

“No.” Nebula murmurs, sorrowful. “I don’t think they could.”

A cold, horrid feeling freezes Tony’s body, panicked dread flooding his thoughts, and all he can do is whimper his next question, his voice too frail, his heart too bare, his mind too raw, too much fear for him to be able to speak too loudly.

“What do you mean?” He asks, like a child – a child who has seen too much but it’s still so painfully naïve, a child who still wants to believe they won’t be hurt, knowing that they will anyway.

Nebula looks at him, and her eyes give him nothing. “You will see.”

And Tony wants to ask, he wants to press her for answers, he doesn’t want to be left in the dark anymore, even if the dark is safer, even if he knows it’ll hurt.

But his lips won’t move. He cannot speak.

So he walks, in silence, and Nebula holds him the entire way.

They reach the first floor eventually – too soon, yet not soon enough – and they walk as silently as they can while searching for a way out.  Nebula spots the signs that guide them to a back door, the plaques that lead to the secondary exit, the back entrance, right ahead of them, and that’s where she takes them. And the more it gets closer, the more difficult is to Tony to keep walking, the harder it is for him to obey the very simple command of keep going.

He wants to turn back around. He doesn’t want to go outside.

But he does. He needs to see. He needs to know.

(But it’ll kill me.)

He needs to know.

The red panic bar stands there before Tony, a mocking guardian of freedom, a cosmical fucking joke in the middle of everything that’s happened. A panic bar is separating Tony from the outside, from everything that will give him panic, from the sounds, from whatever happened out there, from the very real, inescapable consequences of the shortcomings of Tony’s actions.

Tony reaches out, and puts his hand on the panic bar. His palm is clammy and disgusting. He has no strength to push it.

Nebula looks at his hand for a second, the briefest, quieter of beats; And then releases his wrist, holding him tighter with the hand around his waist, and without a word or a worried glance, she puts her free hand on the bar beside Tony’s and pushes, right as he does as well, and the bar moves under their fingers and opens the door slowly.

It feels like the opening of the gates of hell.

Tony looks outside.

And the first thing he sees is dust.

 

You would think chaos is a familiar concept to him.

Tony knows chaos.

(Oh no.)

Tony knows destruction.

(Oh no.)

But even Tony, who is the Merchant of Death, who has seen chaos in so many forms, has carried it inside his mind and inside his heart

He has never known this.

 

(No.)

(No.)

 

The city is empty.

New York—

New York is fucking empty.

(Oh God.)

(No.)

The vision in Tony’s mind, the memories he has stored from years and years of absorbing death into his bloodstream like drugs or alcohol, from trading war like one would trade cards, is very, very clear. It’s the same image he still sees when he thinks of Afghanistan, of Gulmira, and it’s filled with dirt and blood and terror, of screams and noise, of gunshots, of footsteps, of dying breaths. He knows what it sounds in the city, too. It sounds like cars crashing, windows and glass doors being broken, buildings falling, screaming.

There’s always screaming.

Never silence.

(Fuck.)

But New York—

New York is silent.

(Fuck.)

No, not silent. There’s noise. There’s fire, and explosions, and crackles and dripping and crumbling, there are sirens and alarms and so much noise. He can’t hear himself think. He opened that door – he opened one door and the world exploded around him, a cacophony of decay and madness, and Tony doesn’t even know where to look, what to focus on, because there’s so much and he doesn’t understand what’s going on.

But these are the sounds of a city abandoned, nothing more, because none of those sounds is human. There's no people.

New York is a ghost town now. Tony has come home two days too late.

And his home is dead.

The air is stale and rancid, dry as sand, so sharp and dusty and polluted it almost feels solid in his heavy, sensitive lungs. Tony tries to take in a deep breath, unconsciously, his mouth falling open in terrified shock and agonized realization – and he chokes on nothing, his throat closing up against an invisible intrusion, throwing him into a coughing fit that makes his entire torso burst into flaring pain once more, feeling like his ribs are piercing his organs, one puncture at the time.

He coughs and coughs and it hurts, his eyes water and he can’t breathe right, and Nebula calls his name in a panicked voice when he starts to go red in the face, exertion and lack of oxygen nearly making him topple, his head fuzzy and unfocused. His throat is completely raw. He tries to blink away the water in his eyes, but they’re the only thing allowing him to see past the thick fog of dust, the absolute dryness of the air, and his stomach hurts so much he can’t stop tearing up even if he wanted to.

Jesus fuck, it hurts.

It hurts, it hurts.

He can’t even take it all in. He can’t comprehend it. He looks and what he sees is just—

(His home is dead.)

(His home is dead.)

The road is completely blocked, in every direction and in every corner. There is no way to even cross somewhere. There are abandoned cars all over the avenue, crashed into nearby stores and into each other, letting out gusts of gray smoke into the air, smearing oil all over the asphalt and darkening the floor into a deep, thick, viscous black. The doors are all open, and left like that, as if a quick escape has happened. As if suddenly, all drivers just ran away, leaving everything they had behind. And they did. That’s exactly what they did.

He tries to breathe, tries to take in a large gulp of air to calm himself down – but when he inhales, the dust and the smoke come with it, and they taint his lungs like poison, and it suffocates him. He feels like he’s inhaling sand. He feels like he might be inhaling ashes.

The sky is gray. A sickly, wrong gray, clouds of ash instead of rain. A building burns in his line of sight. Worse than that, it is destroyed, the entire left side charred and broken, as if something gigantic went through it and took down almost four entire floors. Tony can see the structure of the walls and ceilings, and the wires pulled loose from the interior, and they are bursting with sparks of electricity – and it’s making the two top floors go out in flames. The building beside it is half-demolished, caught in the destruction of whatever blew up the taller one, and there are so many other buildings exactly like that. Half-broken, ripped apart, crumbling in a rain of concrete, stone and iron, only the ruins of a world that Tony once so fiercely loved.

There are windows broken and belongings forgotten, it’s all a cloud of dust and blaring noise and the distant sound of burning, the whistle of the wind and his ragged breathing, and there’s – there are so many cars, and motorcycles, and an ambulance, and wheelchair toppled by the curb… and no one is around.

There is… There is no one.

His home is gone.

“They evacuated.” Nebula says, and she sounds distant once more, as if she is miles and miles away. Tony can feel her beside him, a solid, physical presence, but her touch doesn’t register in his mind. It’s no comfort, it’s just pressure. Tony can feel her body right beside his – but she still seems so far away, and Tony is so, so alone, and he doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn’t know what to do.

(How—)

(How can he ever fix this?)

Tony hadn’t known what he’d find, but he didn’t expect this. He expected chaos. He expected damage, and broken buildings, and fire. He expected it. He knows what chaos looks like – he thought he knew. But he is alone, why isn’t anyone here, where has everyone gone!?

Oh, God.

(I’m alone.)

No. No, no, no.

(I am alone again.)

How can Tony ever fix this? How could he ever hope to fix this?

Tony is just a man—

(Just a man in a can. Nothing more. A man in a can.)

How can he fight this? He is no – He’s just a mechanic, that’s all he is, all he can do is pick up broken pieces and fit them together again. He can’t bring people back to life. If – everyone is gone, what can Tony do? He can’t do anything. He can’t avenge them, not alone. Dear God, he doesn’t want to be alone. Why is he alone?

Had Thanos lied?

Did he—

Did he lie?

Oh, God.

Oh, fuck.

Did he lie?

Did he lie in Tony’s face, like the maniac, sadistic bastard he was, did he lean down and lied in Tony’s face and killed everyone Tony had tried to protect? Did he wipe away everything!?

He could have, the son of a bitch—

(No, no, that makes no sense.)

(People, there were people in the hospital.)

(Nebula saw them, Nebula said—)

But – How – Why can’t Tony see anyone!? This is New York, for fuck’s sake, New York. Where is everyone!?

(Nebula lied.)

No.

That can’t be it.

(Did she—)

(She lied.)

He can’t grip Nebula’s shoulder any tighter. His fingers are so stiff. He’s squeezing, as hard as he can, trying to feel something, anything that would make his mind register that she is right there, but his brain won’t listen. He’s about to cut himself on the metal shoulder plate of Nebula’s arm, and he still can’t feel her properly.

“Where to?” Tony shakily asks, hopelessly. “Where would they go? New York is – It’s huge, where would they—?”

Nebula does not answer him.

Tony is so shaken he feels like he might start crying.

(Did she lie to him?)

No. No, she didn’t lie. Tony heard voices. Tony heard a baby cry. There’s people. There’s people, and he knows that.

But the dark corners of his mind—

“There are people.” Tony exhales, so suddenly and sharply it almost sounds like a sob. “In the hospital. We have to go back in there. I have to see them—”

— They don’t want to listen.

No.” Nebula forcefully holds him still as he makes the slightest motion in the direction of the hospital again. “If we go back, they will make you go back to the bed. We need to go.”

Tony jostles in her arms, trying to push her away suddenly, revolted, feeling trapped and betrayed and scared and alone, and he’s freaking out, he’s losing his mind completely, he needs to stop or else it’ll happen again.

Do you see what is happening here!? Where is everyone!?” Tony screams at her, his exclamation verging on frenzied, and his throat scratches and burns and tears apart like ribbons, and he wants… he wants… he just wants to know what the fuck is going on. He wants to stop. He wants to fucking disappear. “The city is destroyed!

“And you are injured and can’t help.” Nebula snaps back. “We need reinforcements.”

“I need to know what happened!” Tony screeches, distraught, because his voice is ragged and desperate and hysterical, he is angry and he is ashamed and he is mourning, he can’t take much more of this.

(She lied!)

Stop that!

(You’re alone!)

“Are there even any people in there?” Tony inquires, throwing the accusation right at Nebula’s face, uncaring of how she will react for the very first time. He squints at her, suspicious, so damned suspicious and on edge that he can only register at the back of his head that he is accusing a being who has admitted having several knives on them and no fear of using them if necessary, and he doesn’t give a shit.

Nebula lets him out of the hold of her arms, her expression sour and offended, borderline enraged, and growls at him, “You think I’m lying to you?”. Her entire face is distorted in disgust, and she’s threatening, she’s every bit of that scary android he thought she could be, and it’s all directed to him. “Why the hell would I lie to you, if trying to help you? What would I gain!? What do you think– I’m not Thanos!

Oh, shit, fuck.

(Why did you do that? Why the fuck did you do that for, huh!?)

Past the rage and the panic, past the adrenaline pumping into his veins like a drug, the quivering of his exhausted muscles and his ragged breaths, Tony feels the hot, burning feeling of shame coiling inside his chest, a heavy stone sitting right on top of his heart, and Tony averts his gaze immediately, scolding himself like a misbehaving child.

She helped. Nebula helped, didn’t she? And Tony heard the voices, the cries. He did. But… But Nebula could have just forged that – But again, why would she? What sort of elaborate scheme could she have, that would make all of this necessary? There’s no explanation Tony can find besides the obvious, even if the obvious makes no sense: She really is just helping.

And she is right. Tony knows that. Deep down, Tony knows that.

He shouldn’t have accused her of lying.

(But she could have—)

He shouldn’t have done it. That was his mistake.

But Tony’s biggest mistake was to think he could still stand up without Nebula’s support.

Nebula pushes him away just as Tony tries to take a step back, and he immediately regrets it. His knees are weak, and they give under him lightning fast, the joints not even making an effort to hold him up, and as soon as he feels his balance shifting, his heart rate goes wild and he suddenly can’t breathe.

This time, it has nothing to do with the air.

It has everything to do with the feeling of something popping open on his belly, and the sharp, hot flare of pain that bursts inside him, and the disgusting, terrible, dreadful feeling of something wet soaking the bandages around his belly and turning them soggy and warm and gross, and the agonizing shock he feels on his kneecaps when they hit the cement, his hands too slow to stop his fall, actually only making it all worse when his palms scrape the ground and he hurts himself on the rubble and dirt.

“Shit!” Nebula hisses, all her anger vanishing as pure, unveiled concern washes over her features, and she lunges in Tony’s direction a little too late to stop him from falling.

And then, only when he’s leaning down, only when this angle allows him to look under the SUV directly in front of him, blocking the street—

Only then he sees the body.

The—

The body—

Tony takes in a huge breath, ready to scream, and the entire gulp of air just gets stuck on his throat, and he chokes on nothing.

The world spins around Tony, out of focus like a speeding car, and Tony’s body locks up completely, all his muscles contracting in pure instinct, so hard and unmoving it feels they’re made of marble. His heart beats so loud and so furiously he can’t hear anything else past it, exploding inside his chest, and it hurts, it hurts, all the way down to his arms, and Tony desperately wants to reach for his torso and check he isn’t injured, he isn’t bleeding to death again, but his hands are trembling and spasming with the adrenaline, and he can’t move them at all. He can’t feel them. They tingle and they burn, but they don’t belong to him. None of his body does.

He heaves, fast and broken, the air never quite reaching his lungs, his brain desperate for oxygen and going hazy all too fast, shutting down everything; Full of white noise and fear and hopelessness, of sadness and guilt and shame and pain, and Tony can’t stop staring, his eyes burn, he wants to cry, but he has no tears and he can’t blink.

“Stark? Stark!”

He doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to look.

(It’s Peter.)

(It’s Peter.)

(It’s Peter—!)

“Stark, can you hear me!?”

Tony lets out a whimper that is so anguished he sounds like an animal, and it hurts his ears. He wants it to stop. He tries to scream, but the only thing that comes out is the same sound again. His throat is closing up.

It’s a body. It’s a boy. A kid, so young, so small, he couldn’t have been older than thirteen. He’s just… He’s lying there, eyes still open, mouth parted as if in a gasp, a trickle of dried blood staining his lips. He looks gray, like the entire world around him. He’s all twisted and sprawled, a ragged doll thrown out of the window, left on the floor to be forgotten by time.

He’s dead.

And he looks so much like Peter.

(No, no, no—!)

(No.)

(The kid—!)

Someone screams his name and his body shakes back and forth limply, nearly painfully – and suddenly, all he can see is blue.

“Stark!”

Blue.

No body. No Peter.

Blue.

Tony lurches forward on instinct, his eyes still fixated on the same point in space, in the same direction where the body had been, and he tries to push away the blue barrier so he can see, so he can reach for his kid, so he can save him. His legs won’t respond, he can’t even fully support his own spine, but he lurches anyway, because his heart is ripping open and he needs to reach the kid.

His entire body is begging him to go, to stay away, to get up and run – close your eyes, close your eyes and forget this –, but he’s still coming forward, bumping against the blue, and shaking in despair when his too weak limbs can’t help him move and help his kid.

“There’s no threat!” The voice assures him, hasty and firm, almost aggressive, refusing to be ignored. “We’re safe! Stop that! We’re safe!”

He doesn’t listen. He keeps pushing, distressed, even as the wall pushes him back. Even when he can’t breathe, even when he starts to sag and his sweat turns torturously cold. Even when his entire body goes numb and heavy, and he feels himself go empty, even as his mind still burst with static and jolts with unexplained adrenaline and anxiety, a muted cry of despair that goes farther and farther away with every beat; Until he feels like he’s once again trapped inside a bubble, encased inside an armor of foam, everything dull except for the sharp edges of the fear inside his head.

Stark.” A voice calls, insistent. It barely registers in his muddled mind.

Tony blinks confusedly, his eyelids working frantically and unhelpfully, doing nothing to help him clear his head.

“What?” He babbles, hoarse and breathless, the word barely a whisper.

“There’s no threat.” The voice repeats, pointedly, from very, very close. Quiet. Low. Soft. “No threat.”

“No threat.” He repeats, but on his lips, it sounds like a question. Even so, the voice says it back again, confirming it, reaffirming it, over and over again until the words finally, finally, start to sink in a little deeper into Tony’s head. No threat. He knows. But the kid—

Tony leans to the side, mostly using the pressure of the unknown person with him to keep himself supported, as his left arm is mostly numb and is barely doing anything to hold his weight. He looks over the person’s shoulder – a blue person, Nebula – but from this angle, he cannot see, not the face, but he sees the arm flung to the side and the unmoving fingers, full of dirt beneath the fingertips, and he inhales sharply and averts his gaze quickly, closing his eyes too tightly.

“I’m okay.” He says, unconvincingly, but he has to say it. He has to. He has to be okay, there is no other choice. He needs to breathe, he needs to stop his heart from hammering painfully inside his ribcage, he has to be clear-headed for this. He can’t slip. Not now. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“What happened?” Nebula asks, sounding actually very concerned, but Tony shakes his head, and squeezes his eyes shut again, a grimace tight on his face, fighting the urge to let tears spill out so hard it gives him a headache.

Nebula looks over her shoulder— and at first, she merely stares at the car behind her, bewildered, clearly not understanding Tony’s explosive reaction; Until two seconds pass, and Tony sees the way her shoulders tense when she looks down and see the other side of the street from under the car’s chassis, and sees the hand.

She keeps staring at it for a very, very long time. Long enough for it to be too much. Long enough that Tony only wants her to say something, because he can’t stand her just being silent.

“It’s a body.” Tony mutters, hopelessly. “A body, so… Not Thanos. Something else. Probably from the car crash.”

If Tony had wanted any proof that Nebula wasn’t lying about still having people around, there was no crueler way to give it to him than this. But there it is – there’s his proof. A body, no ash, which means whatever killed this kid, it wasn’t Thanos. Merely what he left behind. And it’s been… It’s been two days, and the body is still here, on the street. No one has come for him. For a freaking kid. Probably – Probably, whoever was in the car with him vanished, and the car crashed, and the kid was launched off the seat into the pavement. Or maybe he didn’t die then, but he climbed out of the car, confused and scared, alone, alone, and he didn’t see the van coming closer, too close, too fast—

The kid died on the street, and he’s still here. No one could’ve reached him, not even an ambulance.

He died on the street.

(It would have been kinder to just vanish.)

Tony hates himself for thinking that.

He shouldn’t think that. He shouldn’t he shouldn’t. There is no kindness in that. There is no— Peter vanished, that kid is not Peter, and Peter had suffered, suffered in Tony’s arms— No kindness.

There is no kindness in death. There is also no kindness on life either.

(The world is never kind.)

Before he can berate himself any further, Nebula releases him and stands up, stiff and rigid, her shoulders squared in determination, and Tony unconsciously reaches up and grabs her hand, still too on edge, still unable to comprehend what exactly is happening around him.

“Where are you going?” Tony hurriedly asks, slightly concerned by her posture and demeanor, uncomfortable with the pure seriousness Nebula exudes, even with her back turned to him.

She gives him a hard glance over her shoulder and says, “Stay here.”

“What are you doing!?”

She ignores him. In slow, methodic steps, she goes around the car, her boots not making a single sound on the pavement, until she disappears from his line of sight.

Everything Tony sees then, he sees only in a glimpse – and, somehow, that makes it even more… meaningful. Like he’s witnessing something he shouldn’t. Like he has stumbled upon a secret too big to ever be spoken about out loud.

He sees blue hands reaching under a frail back, careful with their movement, and as she finds the right grip, the body slowly gets pulled from under the car, like it’s floating on water and being washed away by the stream. Nebula scoops the boy into her arms and stands up, and Tony watches fixedly as she walks around to the other side, walking away from him, cradling the kid with such… surprising care, tucking his head into the crook of her elbow so he’ll be comfortable and still.

A useless kindness. A bittersweet protection.

A rescue that comes too late.

Two days too late.

Tony’s chest seizes, hurting for that boy, hurting because that is all he can do, and when Nebula walks so far away that she disappears from his line of sight again, he lets his head fall down and a sob escape his scratchy throat, burning all the way up from the depths of him, a lick of pain he fees like it’s deserved.

He breathes in and out. He can taste the dust at the back of his tongue, like he swallowed a mouthful of dirt. It’s disgusting. It makes him want to puke.

In and out.

In and out.

In and out.

He doesn’t know for how long.

When he hears Nebula approaching him again, he has calmed down enough that the sweat on his skin feels cold again, not infernally hot as it did before. He can feel the air reaching his lungs again, even if the smell is still stifling. He raises his head slowly, because it feels like it weighs a ton and he can’t move it right with his achy neck; And Nebula stares back at him with sad, mournful eyes, her whole face pinched in sorrow.

The boy is nowhere in sight.

“Where did you take him?” Tony asks quietly, his grief tangible and palpable, like it’s dripping out of him.

“Inside.” Nebula explains, and Tony’s heart screams silently, because he can’t believe this is happening. “There wasn’t a bed, but they will find him eventually. There wasn’t… There’s nowhere else to take him.”

Tony wants to cry. He wants to, but he can’t. He’s too exhausted. But deep inside, the turbulent, roaring feeling he is developing for Nebula, this twisted mess of mistrust and gratitude, it’s shifting and mutating into something that will latch onto him in a way Tony will never be able to let go of. He wants it to stop, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to get attached. He doesn’t want to feel like this.

He doesn’t want to feel.

But Nebula had just… what she had just done…

Tony knows what that is. He knows exactly what that feels like. It echoes into the very core of him.

He stares back at her, lost and adrift, on his knees and unable to get up on his own.

Aching to touch Nebula again and confirm if she is real.

The way she looks at him, the way her brow shifts just barely, just a hint of confusion and sympathetic concern crossing her features, Tony knows that whatever has just happened to him, it has also happened to her. Something in her perception of him has just changed, and it most likely changed forever. Seeing this – seeing Tony on the ground, panicking and helpless, seeing him weep for a strange kid in the middle of a destroyed New York – has made Nebula see more of him that he had ever planned her to see.

But Tony also saw her.

And now, they are both in too deep in this to simply step away.

Nebula extends her hand at him, careful and deliberate, and asks “Can you stand up?”, but Tony is reaching back before she can even finish the question, and his fingers are so cold her blue skin feels warm under his digits.

“I’m okay.” He mumbles as she pulls him up and half-hugs him again, supporting him without a question – simply pretending the past few minutes simply hadn’t happened.

“No, you’re not.” Nebula counters, but not as an accusation. Just an observation. The reluctant, sad remark of a simple fact. “You opened up your stitches.”

Tony gives a wry chuckle, failing completely to sound nonchalant, but he does it anyway. “Guess I wasn’t ready to be released of the hospital just yet.”

“We need to close you up again.” Nebula scowls, but with no real bite in her voice. She just frowns at Tony, looking tired for the first time since Tony’s met her, and deep down, he feels really fucking guilty that he was the one to make her feel that way. “Hold on tight. I’ll help you back. You can see the people and I can close your wound.”

No.” Tony plants his feet firmly on the ground, resistant and ashamed, shaking his head negatively. “No. I believe you. I believe you. It’s ok. I just – I have to make it back to the Compound.”

“But you—”

“I have to look for Pepper and Rhodey, and Happy, and May Parker—” Tony rambles on, knowing he’s not being nearly as successful in distracting her as he should, but he can’t possibly muster the strength to fake this right now.

He just… He doesn’t want to go back there.

He doesn’t want to go where the kid’s body is.

It doesn’t matter if they won’t see him. It doesn’t matter.

Tony just wants to leave. He wants to go home.

“You were just complaining for me to bring you back—” Nebula starts complaining, but Tony interrupts her and says:

“And now I’m telling you I want to leave.

“You’re bleeding.

“And I’ll bleed more for every second you don’t help me get out of here.”

Nebula looks like she might be imploding, just a little bit, and after a beat, instead of yelling at him – as she would have, as she did before –, she merely sighs.

Humans.” She says, like it’s an insult. 

But it’s not. The gentleness of her hold tells him it’s not.

“I need FRIDAY.” Tony says mostly to himself, ignoring her grumbling, starting on a mental list to keep himself occupied, to have just the smallest comfort of pretending he has a plan to work this out. He ignores thoughts of the kid, he ignores everything else. “Where is the ship?”

Nebula gestures to the left with her head, a graceful gesture of her neck, and Tony lets her lead the way to the ship with no protest or complaint. She helps Tony limp to the ship, a slow, careful trip around the perimeter of the hospital, her pitch-black eyes darting to every single corner warily every two seconds, on high alert to any possible threat. Tony feels like he is no more than a sack of potatoes being dragged around, ashamed and embarrassed, absolutely mortified of what had just happened, of the ridiculous, too vulnerable state he allowed himself to be in, but they go, together—

(Together.)

Away from this place — and that is all that matters.  

It is ridiculous, it’s absurd that the Benatar is just right there, in the parking lot, as if it was just another SUV or crappy car, but it is. It’s just right there, and there is no one else around.

(No one else but the bodies on the street.)

But Tony has never been so glad to see an alien spaceship before.

Nebula helps Tony walk there, slow and careful, silently kind – and every time Tony makes the slightest attempt to turn back and catch one last glimpse of the hospital, or of the street… of the body again, Nebula keeps her hold steady, and keeps him pushing forward, forbidding him to spare a single glance to what they’re leaving behind.

Tony won’t admit that he is grateful, but he is.

Deep down—

He’s really fucking glad he’s - at least for now - not truly alone.

Notes:

Oh boy, this got angsty, didn't it? I swear I'm gonna make him feel better eventually, I promise. Keyword eventually, but it'll happen, trust me.

What happened in this chapter is not random. Nothing in this story will be random. Nothing will happen "just because". Everything has a reason and a function, and I'm very excited to know if anyone can already see the impact this will have going forward on the story, and in Tony's character overall.

As always, give me your thoughts and opinions and theories. I always have the best time talking to you guys. Also, you can come chat with me or see what I'm up to on tumblr or twitter.

Next chapter, we'll start to go deeper and deeper into MCU's inconsistencies and start picking them apart. The true beginning of the plot. As much as I love writing about characters' inner workings and relationships, this train has to leave the station eventually, right? There is so much plot to this fic, you don't even know. I'm very excited to show you what I have planned.

See you next time, everybody. Happy holidays to all and I'll talk to you very soon :)

Chapter 3: Chapter 3

Notes:

Happy 2019, everyone! I wish you all much happiness this upcoming year. Here, have a huge chapter to celebrate! And while we're here, let's get into some plot.

As you've surely noticed, I talk a lot. Not only that, I am an insufferable debater, and I love analyzing details that have seemingly no importance whatsoever, from every single angle I can think of. I'm also a firm believer that the devil is in the details - and details are a very... troubled aspect of the MCU, sometimes ignored, sometimes completely distorted, sometimes not even considered. So I'll go through it all, one by one, and we'll see how far I can go - and exactly how deep the MCU could've pushed our heroes if they wanted to.

Let's go slow and take it from the top. Starting with a topic that has become a core issue for me - and I suspect to a lot of people as well, for a very good reason: Thanos' plan. We're all familiar with it. With a snap of his fingers, Thanos' intent is to wipe away half the population of the entire universe so he can achieve 'balance' - when he simply could have, you know, increased the resources, or eliminated the distribution problem, or chosen any other more educated option. Instead, he disrupted the entire social structure of the universe and called it a day. But what about populations he already helped diminish in his hunt for the stones? Do they get halved anyway - if they even survived being attacked? What about populations that don't consume resources like humankind - like Groot's race, that consists primarily of beings that produce their own sustenance, meaning there is no proper food chain that establishes a hierarchy of resources and consumers? How does the snap work on them? Because it does, as we all saw it. Is the lack of space left to occupy his main concern? So why not populate abandoned planets and use the gauntlet to make them habitable?

I'm sure you all can see why that is a stupid plan right away, but to add to the pile of issues I have with it, Kevin Feige has also added that Thanos not only eliminated 'intelligent' life but also animals and plants, and other sentient beings, all over the universe.

Oh boy. How can I even begin unpacking all the trouble that information has given me?

I mean, could ignore it. Canon would allow me to - As the final scene occurs in Wakanda, in an open field literally surrounded by trees, and we don't see any of them disappear with the snap (unless you want to get technical and count Groot as a tree), we could safely assume that Feige is simply shoving his foot up his mouth with that statement. Which, to be honest, he probably is, because from what I can tell from the A:E trailer, the consequences of this action won't be mentioned at all. But then, the more I thought about it, the more interesting it got. I'm not an ecologist by any means, but how horrible would it be if that was actually the case? Thanos already destroyed half our population, how much worse can it get, if we account for the loss of half of every other living thing as well? What are the consequences on a large scale of losing such a big part of our ecosystem so suddenly, and more importantly - Would it even be an acceptable plan to achieve Thanos' intent?

I had way too many questions to just ignore it - so we're going to roll with it. Thank you, Feige, for this piece of information. You might never use it, but I am going to have a lot of fun with it.

But on another note, one that has less to do with plot and more to do with characterization, we have another issue we need desperately to discuss: Pepper Potts and James Rhodes. As you can see in the tags, this is full-on IW compliant, which means that at this point in time, Tony and Pepper are still very much engaged, as IW establishes. But as the tags also say, this is a SteveTony fic. Not only that, we've all seen how Rhodey reacted to Steve coming back to the Compound, how not-enraged he was and how strange that is, considering what happened in Siberia - and as the tags say, this is also a Team Iron Man fic. So what the hell is going on here?

Well, as we did with AoU, we are not pretending none of this happened. You can't really write an in-depth emotional arc for Tony without considering the people he holds dearest to him, can you? So let's talk about it! If this were an Avengers movie, Pepper and Rhodey would probably fade into the background and provide only some mild support and maybe an epic one-liner, not much else. But I've got time, and I've got a bone to pick, so let's make sure Rhodey and Pepper get their fair amount of analysis, as they should in Tony's POV.

Poor MCU. I will leave no stone unturned.

Let's begin by raising the stakes. Somebody has to. After all, what could possibly stir these incredibly damaged individuals back into action, when they've already lost so much?

Simple. As the infamous Ultron has said it himself: Extinction.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The Compound is silent when he arrives.   

(Silence.)

(No more, please, no more.)

“Rhodes!?” Tony screams as soon as he steps a foot into the door, using all the power of his lungs; His voice echoes against walls, vibrating into empty corridors, his own desperation resounding back to his ears in distressed waves and panic. “Rhodey!

Silence is his only reply.

The Compound is too big. It had to be, at first, because Tony doesn’t do anything half measured. He brought everyone and everything he thought was necessary to ensure they were all safe. That the world would be safe. There had been labs and training grounds, med bays and shooting ranges, R&D and common lounges, everything, for everyone, and every single centimeter had been filled with people talking and thinking and working and living.

At some points, it almost felt like they wouldn’t have enough room for everything that filled the space between the walls, the heart of the facility too full, bursting with the overflow of energy that came through it at every single moment, hope bursting at its core.

When it’s empty, it doesn’t even feel like the same place.

When it’s empty, every single room is too big.

Too silent.

(Where are they?)

(Where are they!?)

Rhodey!” Tony shouts, hoarse and ragged, pushing Nebula away so he can stumble into the Compound with quick, desperate steps, looking around frantically, each corner a new hope and a new crushing disappointment when no one answers to his call. “Pepper! Happy! Vision! Hill!”

(Please, please, where are they!?)

“Rhodes!” Tony screams, until it kills his throat, until his stomach hurts, until his head pounds with pain and agony.

No one replies.

Tony sways unsteadily, exhausted and terrified, drained down to the very soul of himself, and he is about to let himself crumple and shatter, to let himself slip l to the floor again; This time, to not get up again—

Until –

Until there’s a loud crack, like a burst of static inside a sound box, and finally, finally, a voice answers his pleas.

Boss?” A voice calls, loud and surprised, and both Tony and Nebula startle terribly, but where Nebula keeps her posture stiff and her hands ready to reach for her weapons, Tony’s entire body sags, and the feeling that bursts into him is so bright he can’t even recognize it. The relief floods him so intensely he feels he could cry, all warm affection and deep, intense comfort in knowing she’s still here, she’s survived, and he hasn’t lost her just yet.

(Not alone.)

She’s here.

His youngest – his daughter.

She is still here.

FRIDAY.” Tony exhales, so, so relieved, so glad he can feel himself shake with overwhelming emotion. His breath is stuttering, his back muscles actually hurt and pinch from exertion with each and every too-deep inhale, but he pays it no mind. His eyes go upward, unnecessarily, lovingly; And although it feels like too much, like something too intimate, to look up for the second time in only a span of a few hours and feel so… blessed, the symbolism of it too raw and too underserved – he allows himself to feel it, to feel so grateful about something in the middle of such despair, even if for just a little while.

Even if it doesn’t last.

If there is a voice, any voice, that calls back when Tony screams, he will answer to that voice.

“Oh, thank God.” He breathes, because that’s all he can really say, that’s all that will demonstrate at least a small fraction of how deep his relief is. “FRIDAY, are you okay?”

Boss. I am so glad you are back.” FRIDAY exclaims, and Tony is so stupidly sentimental over how worried and caring she sounds, how real she seems, and Tony is so starved for some support he almost wishes he’s made her a body, so he could hug her.

“I know, I know. Don’t worry, Daddy’s back.” Tony says, nonsensically, as if he was really talking to a child. He wants to sound arrogant and confident, like himself, but it’s impossible as his hands twist nervously and he rubs them together to soothe the ache, to quench the need to touch, to save himself from the nerve-wracking sight of his trembling fingers. “I’m alright, I promise.”

“My scans say you’re injured.” FRIDAY points out, upset, even if she is sounding slightly annoyed at Tony’s deflection.

“Nothing big, don’t worry.”

“It seems like you have been injured with a sharp object, like a spear, and it has hit your stomach and grazed your intestine – which caused internal bleeding and several other complications, including leakage of gastrointestinal fluids, which increases the chance of peritonitis. You apparently went through an aggressive surgery and should, most likely, be in bed rest.”

True.

(But who cares?)

Tony’s not even mad she’s mad. He’s too mollified, too open, too raw to be mad.

“How can she tell?” Nebula interrupts with a hard frown on her face, making Tony startle a little as her hand reaches for him again, surprisingly soft, her touch almost silky despite the texture of her fingertips, hardened by wounds and battle.

Tony is himself surprised by how easily it is to let her do it, to allow her closer, with no questioning or hesitation.

Impossibly rattled by his own ease, the instinct to raise his guard so deep-seated he cannot hold it back – he attempts a smirk, something that he’s so used to wear he slips it on just like he slips on his suits, and by the way Nebula’s expression shifts into something aggravated, he thinks he succeeds at stalling her from crossing the threshold where she would see too much.

(Again.)

(Stalling her from crossing it again.)

“She knows me too well.”, he says, faking smugness, and he hopes his eyes, gleaming with unshed tears, or the soft choke on his voice don’t give away all the softness inside that is beating vulnerable and tender on his chest.

Nebula makes a huff so soft it’s almost inaudible and averts her gaze. It feels like it’s on purpose.

“This is your AI, then?” She asks curiously, looking up, following his cue.

“Yeah. Artificial Intelligence.” Tony explains quietly, only realizing after that he might have needed to do that, considering how unsurprised Nebula seems by FRIDAY’s existence. He clears his throat softly, trying his best not to be so obvious about his sniff, and says, “FRIDAY, this is Nebula, but you can call her Avatar. Nebula, this is my girl, FRIDAY.”

Nebula frowns.

“You won’t call me anything.” She snarls a warning half-heartedly, merely annoyed, not murderous, and Tony takes that as a victory.

“As you’d prefer, Visitor.” FRIDAY replies all sugary sweet, sass and elegance, her vowels rolling supple and round, her cadence just like the incredible woman she’d been modeled after had been.

“Play nice.” Tony chastises with no real heat, blinking twice rapidly to dispel the awkward sensation that threatened to creep into his brain. “She’s a friend.”

There’s a beat of silence, tentative and fragile, and Tony waits for a protest or a snide remark that, surprisingly, never comes. It makes something funny unfurl inside his chest.

Tony twists a little to take a better look at Nebula, and something sharp stings him from the inside, and he wobbles in place. He takes in a hard, difficult breath, his body still not fully his own, and Nebula takes this as a sign she must push him forward and guide him inside with slow and soft steps, their shoes making muffled sounds against the cold floor, the vast emptiness of the hallways making them echo into nothingness.

There’s nothing broken in the Compound. The walls are up, the furniture arranged nicely and neatly, everything as it should be.

It’s cold. It makes Tony shiver.

“We need to close your wound.” Nebula says, voice low and pensive, carefully analyzing the stain of blood that has seeped into Tony’s shirt; Not big enough to be a concern, but still possibly dangerous. “Where is your medical equipment?”

“First aid down the hall.” Tony directs her with a gesture of his neck, indicating the way with a tilt of his head. “The lounge next to the workshop. Right cabinet, next to the bar.”

They barely walk three steps in that direction before FRIDAY chips in again. “Boss.”, she urgently calls. “Dum-E and U are in the lounge.”

Tony exclaims a baffled what at the same time Nebula does, but while Nebula sounds deeply confused, Tony’s chest seizes with painful emotion, an almost childish hope, something that drags a soft gasp from his lips and makes his eyes widen to the point where they hurt.

“What kind of nonsense is she saying?” Nebula whispers to him, as if she is trying to keep FRIDAY from hearing her.

Tony can’t find in himself the words to tell her it’s useless, that FRIDAY can hear everything, because even before he can consider the possibility, FRIDAY continues to speak; “I’ve allowed them access to the upper floors after you’d been gone for over 48 hours, Boss.”, she admits, sounding almost a little embarrassed, her usually formal tone laced with a fragility Tony isn’t sure he consciously programmed there.

“And what’s your excuse?”, he teases, but his joke falls short. His hurried, stumbling steps and his breathless voice give away every single bit of the vulnerability that aches inside him, and no matter what he does, he can’t pull it back.

FRIDAY makes a pause, heavy and tentative, before answering softly, “They asked for it.”

Tony halts mid-step, his eyes snapping up incredulously – but before Nebula can process his faltering as a sign to stop, he speeds up, half-pulling her along, his eyes darting to every new corner he turns to, his entire being thrumming with a nervous, electric energy – something that drives him forward with his legs tingly, breath shallow, single-minded purpose to reach the lounge and nothing else.

When they step into the lounge entrance, big glass walls greet him invitingly and spacious, despite the sickly look of the sky outside, the cold light that filters in through the heavy clouds reflecting on the dark floors, and then—

“They’re here.” Tony breathes, softly, and shudders fragilely, to shatter silently from the inside.

Here they are. They are actually here. Right there, next to the sofas, right by the open doors that lead down to the workshop, U perfectly still while Dum-E turning side to side nonsensically to watch their own reflection in the cabinet’s glass door. By their feet – their wheels – there are a few tools, like a wrench and a screwdriver, that seem to have been taken directly from the workshop, possibly from Tony’s own personal set. They have no shame after all, the little idiots.

They look fine. They look like they always have.

On top of the center table, there is a broken broom, a white, dusty cloud of old foam, and a fire extinguisher.

They are fine. His weird, silly bots.

God and it’s so – so stupid of him, so pathetic and sentimental, so incredibly ridiculous, but he can’t help it. Here he is, feeling emotional over these crappy pieces of tech, his bots, his children, made of metals and wires and circuits – never, at any moment, to be threatened by Thanos’ intentions –, yet… Yet he feels so overwhelmed just by seeing them here, to know that they have been waiting for him, that they have asked to come up because they… because they have been worried.

How did they ask? He doesn’t even know how.

They don’t form directives of their own. They don’t speak. They’re not even equipped to form a logical string of words by themselves, only to recognize and to respond – affirm, deny, or realize task.

(That’s not true.)

They understand sentences, but… But to ask

“How did they get here?” Tony asks, his chest constricting, a small but telling thought forming at the back of his head; but he doesn’t want to let it grow, not yet, not before he gets an answer.

“Using the elevator.” FRIDAY replies, cool and sweet, soft, and Tony knows she can detect the way his heart his racing, can see the flow of the neurotransmitters from the biomarkers implanted on him, probably being able to name Tony’s current emotions much better than Tony himself can. And even still – or, maybe, because of it –, she adds, “I guided them through the correct path.”

Ah.

(There it is.)

All of them.

(His weird, silly kids.)

All of them are in on this. Dum-E, U, and FRIDAY.

As Tony walks towards them, leaving the secure embrace on Nebula’s arms when he finds her stiff and still on her feet, his eyes run along the bots’ form paranoidly, looking for scratches or cracks, for wounds that would have no reason to be there, but he does it all the same. He won’t find anything, nothing other than the mess they might’ve made of themselves in his absence, but Tony worries all the same. Tony fears all the same.

Tony steps right into the foam of the fire extinguisher in his haste, thoughtlessly, and the layer of it is so thick he doesn’t realize he’s about to stub his toe on the foot of the center table up until he does. He hisses and lets out a muttered shit at the pain that bursts into his foot, unconsciously bending over to soothe it with his hands until a sharp twinge on his torso and the painful creaking on his knees stop him still, awkwardly balancing himself with his arms open in the air, like a crazy drunk trying to stand on his feet while walking a straight line.

The movement belatedly calls U’s attention, who turns his claw slowly in Tony’s direction, only to rise suddenly, like an excited puppy raising its head, and the high-pitched sound his pistons give when he does it seems like a gasp; That stops Dum-E’s little dance in front on his own reflection and also makes him turn, and then he also makes a noise.

They look like they could jump in elation.

(No, they don’t.)

(Robots don’t jump, Tony, don’t be silly.)

But they do look happy. They do. It makes Tony feel like he’s made of jelly, like he is going to dissolve just like the foam he’s stepping into.

They make sounds. Sounds of depressurization and recalibration, hydraulics as smooth as always, sounds of wheels tumbling clumsily and beeps and whirrs that feel too much like words. They wheel closer, excited, and Tony can’t help the way his hands shake as he raises them to pet his stupid creations, the metal cool and covered in a sheen layer of dust when he touches it, particles so thin they are as soft as baby powder, and Tony rubs it between his fingers, confusedly.

When he takes off the excess, he can see his own reflection in U’s arm, distorted by its circumference and material, but even then, Tony realizes he looks like shit.

His goatee is a mess, unkept and dirty, with a disgusting shine to it as his face turned more and more greasy as the days went by and he never showered. There’s still a faint tinge of red in his lips and teeth, his left cheek is swollen, and he has dried blood on his temples.

The bags under his eyes are so deep they look black against his pale skin.

A dead man walking.

(Of course.)

(Death wouldn’t come for him when he called.)

Tony is still for a second too long, frozen and distant, and Dum-E makes an inquiring noise, turning his claw at him.

Tony looks at him, surprised, and his interior feels too soft, too squishy and too mushy, so he pushes all thought aside in favor of showering his bots with attention, all he can spare, because it’ll keep the ugly thought from coming too close when he is too raw. Just for a little longer. He wants to be this, unguarded and open, grateful, even though he doesn’t know what he did to deserve this, just a little longer.

The possibility of losing the bots by Thanos’ hands had never been real, he knows this. They hadn’t been under any sort of danger, like everyone else had.

(But he’s already lost a kid.)

(He can’t help but hold to the others as tightly as he can.)

Tony runs his hand over Dum-E’s and U’s arms unconsciously, feeling the cool touch of the metal beneath his fingertips, pretending the feel of the smoothness of the polished plates isn’t ruined by the scratches and cuts on his palms. He’s so distracted by it he almost misses the sound of boots stepping closer, going around the foam he recklessly stepped into on his haste, slow like a predator circling its’ prey.

But it is no predator.

(There is no threat.)

Nebula is looking at him flabbergasted, her eyes wide and confused, questions swirling inside the dark infinity of her gaze, as if Tony is a puzzle she cannot figure out. She looks at him, at his hand laid on top of Dum-E for a very, very long time, until she says:

“You created them.”

And her words are small, but her eyes are fervent.

Tony nods, his lips twisting and twitching uncomfortably, averting his gaze, all attempts of finding an adequate response completely failing him. “Sure did.”, is what he says, and he knows this is no response at all, not for what Nebula is truly asking him, but that is all Tony can do right now. “This is U, and this is Dum-E.”, he introduces, patting them as he says their names, and they both make a whirring sound at being called, their mechanical pincers twitching and moving frantically, emulating the feeling of life so thoroughly that Tony can’t resist going back to caressing them as soon as he finishes talking.

Nebula stares, intense and unashamed, something… complicated clouding her expression. “And they respond to you. They… missed you.”

They did.

(And that’s so – that’s so weird, that Tony is so mushy over some stupid bots, even if they are his stupid bots—)

(They missed him and only Tony would be foolish enough to program feelings into his machines so they would miss him—)

“They’re just whiny and needy. Can’t leave them alone too long or else they chew the furniture.”

But Nebula is not buying it. Tony can see she’s not.

It’s uncomfortable, to be under Nebulas sharp, unwavering gaze, as she unravels him with the same precision she used to unravel his nanite compartment, probably. He almost wants to ask her “what?”, just to see what she will say, to see if she will give any hint to what exactly is going on in that head of hers that has her looking at Tony like he is the freakiest thing she has ever seen. And Nebula has seen a lot, he can tell. If Tony somehow managed to fall into the category of things that make Nebula speechless, Tony can’t imagine that whatever she is thinking about him is something good.

Oh.

(Wait.)

Oh, shit. Is she offended by this?

Shit, fuck, Tony hadn’t thought about that. Android, for fuck's sake. Android person, literally standing right there, as Tony talks with his robot voice and pets his robot children and announces, with everything but his words, that he is their owner.

Holy fuck, that might actually be an offensive thing he just did. Bringing Nebula here, to his home, where all his other machines are? Oh, fuck, Tony hadn’t thought about it like that. Is Nebula offended by the idea that Tony might be interested in her as a machine? I mean – he is, don’t get him wrong, he’s not doing in on purpose, be he is an engineer and he is fascinated with marvelous tech, whatever origin that tech might have –, but Tony is not trying to make Nebula into one of his’. He has already said he isn’t.

Not out loud, yeah, but it’s the intention of it the counts! Or the lack of intention, or whatever. What matters is that he wouldn’t!

Tony didn’t bring her here for this. She knows that, right? This, Dum-E and U, this is a coincidence. Tony’s not taking Nebula in like a stray kitten or anything like that, like he’s adopting her or something, because he knows Nebula would kill him if he suggested anything of the sort.

Tony would never do that. He would never lure someone close just to dismantle them, to pick them apart, to keep them for his amusement. Tony would never.

He would never.

He is stumbling down in a spiral of anxiety and nervousness when he opens his mouth – which is not the best moment to try and justify yourself to the angry assassin android lady, ever, but it has to be now before she cuts his head off –, but Nebula beats him to the punch and, very calmly, says:

“Hey. U.” Nebula calls, imposingly, and all three of them startle at her before Tony realizes she’s not talking to him, but to U, the bot.

U realizes it as well, but is confused, like the silly, slow little bot he is, and he tilts to the side and makes a sound that implies a question, facing Nebula almost as if he were truly looking at her.

“You know where the medical kit is?” Nebula asks, and as Tony gapes a little, U makes a chirp of agreement, high and excited, and Nebula nods at him. “Bring it to me.”

“And you. Dum-E.” Nebula calls, testing the name the same way she had tested the word hospital, the word foreign on her tongue, syllables heavy and careful. “Bring him here.”

Tony is still blinking owlishly when Dum-E pinches his blood-stained shirt with amazing precision, more than he has ever displayed in all of his clumsy, twitchy years – and he wheels down in Nebula’s direction slowly, taking Tony with him with faltering steps, until they are close enough so Nebula can pull Tony and spin him around so he can sit on a sofa, his body moving mechanically through the motions.

“Can you find him some water?” Nebula asks quietly to Dum-E as Tony sits down as ordered, looking at him expectantly.

It’s like Tony stepped into an alternate reality or something.

(What the hell is going on?)

Dum-E also makes a noise, shriller and scratchier than U, and turns around ungracefully to follow Nebula’s request as she crouches in front of Tony, pushing his shoulders back so he can straighten his spine and she can open his ruined shirt.

Tony continues to gape at her, and she continues to ignore him. Tony is already bare-chested again when he finds his words, Nebula working around the bandages with a meticulous touch, trying to peek inside without removing them first.

“They listen to you.” Tony idiotically says, surprised.

“They don’t listen to you?” Nebula frowns, disbelieving, if not a little sarcastic, still not looking up at him.

“Not like that.” He unhelpfully answers, his brows twitching in confusion, and with a huff, Nebula ignores him in favor of slowly taking off his bandages without aggravating his wounds.

Tony lets her do it, silent. He raises his arms diligently when Nebula leans closer to his sides and unravels the pieces of cloth around his flank, breathing deeply and trying his best not to twist too far and screw up any more of his stitches. He tries not to wince when the bandages get stuck to a stray, crooked stitch, and Nebula kindly pretends she cannot hear him as he fails to do so. Eventually, U returns, med kit in hand – claw –, and Nebula takes it from him silently as the bot wheels away to give her room.

When he has no other order to complete, U usually finds something to occupy himself with, something to grab and examine, just as Dum-E always does.

Right now, he wheels back, and stays still. Behind Tony.

He stands vigil, and he doesn’t move.

“You give them life.” Nebula whispers, and Tony is so surprised that he twitches under her fingers, his eyes widening and turning down to look for hers immediately, but she doesn’t look back.

Nebula keeps wrapping him up, her gaze focused on Tony’s wound, avoiding his eyes.

(Shit.)

“Well.” Tony starts, then stops. And when he does it, he realizes he doesn’t know what he had been about to say, not really, so he concludes with: “Something like that.”

And the moment grows heavy between them, too heavy for words, so they say nothing – But Nebula’s hands are amicable on his wound. Careful. There is no wrath in them.

Tony takes that as an answer, and lets it be enough.

She helps him wrap new bandages across his torso, once they have cleaned the blood and fixed a torn stitching. Nebula also checks his knees because of his fall, prodding at them gently, and the hiss Tony gives is sharp and pained despite her careful touch, the skin bruised and tender; But nothing seems broken or dislocated. Just sore, like all the rest of him. Just another bruise. Just another cut. Just another wound.

Tony asks her about her shoulder, but she brushes him off – and he would laugh at it, if he had the strength to do so.

Dum-E does find his way back to them, and, shockingly, he has also done exactly what Nebula has asked him to do. He brings Tony a water bottle, taken from the mini-bar, and the bottle is still intact except for a tiny indentation from Dum-E’s a little too tight grip. Tony doesn’t know if the same can be said from the mini-bar – but it probably can’t – but he doesn’t mind. He takes the bottle with a slight, faint smile at the corner of his lips, an emotion frail and humble, something bittersweet; and he says Thanks, buddy.

He sounds distressed.

(It’s okay. Ignore it.)

(Don’t think about it.)

(It’s just a water bottle.)

(Shut up and drink it.)

Tony opens the bottle and brings it to his lips, his first sip of water in days, and it tastes like affection.

(Don’t you fucking cry over a water bottle.)

(Get up.)

(Drink it.)

Nebula stands up smoothly, snapping Tony from his turbulent thoughts, and he directs his attention to her only to find her stone-faced, her expression giving away nothing of what passes inside. Tony kind of wants to ask, wants to see if he can help her, if he could offer anything in return for all the silent kindness she has given him.

But he doesn’t know how to say it. He doesn’t even know if Nebula would want it.

So he says nothing.

“Does it hurt?” Nebula asks, referring to his wound.

(Yes.)

(It does.)

“No.” Tony says, touching his bandages gently. “Feels uncomfortable, but it doesn’t hurt.”

“They said it would take time to heal.” Nebula comments, and Tony is confused for a fraction of a second until he realizes she means the doctors that operated on him. “Hard surgery. Bad wound. You might never be the same. Your body can’t heal like it was before.”

And then, she raises her gaze at him, piercing and incredibly telling.

“But that’s not a problem for you, is it?”

And Tony has nothing to say to that, nothing that will properly express the absolute mess that is bubbling inside him, a cauldron of hot, boiling feelings, and he twists his lips to avoid a whimper from clawing its way out, resisting, with all his might, the instinct to raise his arms and block her vision from his chest, from the compartment glowing bright blue in his heart, even though the thing he truly wants to hide is not even in sight.

(She knows.)

(She saw.)

But it can’t be. There is no way she could have seen. His wound was not so high, and Tony’s chest, despite all that happened in the fight, came out only bruised, not cut or exposed—

(But she knows.)

— But she knows what Tony is hiding, beneath his skin.

For a second, he stares at her, a mix between scared and daring, not truly jutting his chin out in defiance but very nearly doing so. If Tony had the option, he would retreat, turn his back to her with a charming smile and an annoying one-liner, to push her away in the most effective and quick manner, but Nebula has already seen too much. In too little time. This is what happens, he supposes, when you survive the end of the world. You have no barriers left. Everything you had holding yourself together, it crumbles down along the rest of your world, turning into a pile of broken pieces at your feet.

He wonders if she felt it, when she touched his torso.

He wonders if that changes what she thinks of him.

Nebula never rises to the unspoken challenge. She merely stares back, stares until Tony’s eyes are getting tired from the unnecessary strain, dry and swollen, and after an embarrassing amount of time, he averts his gaze and takes in a large gulp of breath, retreating.

(She won’t say anything.)

Maybe she won’t. Not like she has anyone to tell to, anyway. And it’s not like it’s important. Because it’s not. Tony has never told anyone because it’s no big deal. It’s just something he had to do, to make sure the nanotech would work fine, attached to his entire body. It’s not – He’s not in danger. No one did this to him. He did this to himself, and he knows what he is doing, and it’s fine.

Nebula probably understands better than most, actually. She must, from the way she just figured out how the Arc Reactor worked and basically saved Tony’s life a few days ago. She… she knows. She certainly knows what it feels like.

From the way her eyes look sad when her gaze flickers in the direction of the bright blue light in Tony’s chest, Tony is sure she does.

Tony should probably be counting himself lucky that Nebula was the one to figure out, not anybody else. Not –

(Pepper.)

His palms start to sweat, his throat turning suddenly desert-dry again, airways closing in a sudden snap of fear, and he has to close his eyes and force his body not to lock up before he descends into panic again, every single breath a struggle so tiring he feels like he’s much, much older than he truly is.

“Okay. No use delaying this anymore, is there?” Tony mumbles, grinding his teeth together painfully for a second, swallowing around nothing and feeling the sticky, disgusting sensation of his blood-stained teeth still unbrushed for days, the bad taste on his tongue.

He wants to keep his mouth shut. He doesn’t want to say the words he is about to say.

(But he has to.)

“FRIDAY.” Tony calls. “Give me a run-down.”

“Stark—” Nebula says in a warning, reluctant and small, but he interrupts her.

“It’s ok.” Tony says, even when he knows Nebula won’t believe him, but he has to silence her and let FRIDAY speak, or else he will lose the courage. “I can take it.”

Nebula looks at him like he is a liar, and he is.

But the time for Tony to worry about himself is long, long past. Years too late, in fact.

(I don’t care if it kills me.)

(I don’t care what happens to me.)

He simply needs to know.

“FRI, report. Who is…”, and he chokes, he chokes anyway, the words too big to pass through his throat comfortably, too heavy and poisonous, sharp and shattered and scratching him from the inside out. “Who made it?”, he asks and fears the answer.

(Where are they?)

(Are they alive?)

(Please, tell him he’s not the only one.)

FRIDAY makes a pause – and it barely lasts a second, but Tony almost tells her to hurry up, because he can’t take this. He can’t take the waiting, the hesitation, he has to know or else he will never find the strength again. It doesn’t matter. He will never be ready, it’ll never be the right time, he has to hear it now or else it will destroy him.

“Miss Potts and Colonel Rhodes are alive, Boss.”

And that’s a punch in the gut right away, like being stabbed all over again. His heart stutters a painful beat, like it’s exploding suddenly, the shards of it entering his lungs the same way the shrapnel had cut through him in Afghanistan. Tony can’t breathe. The Arc Reactor is long gone but he can’t breathe, the air is not reaching his chest, and he heaves and gasps helplessly as all rational thought leaves him and all he is left with is a piercing, heart-wrenching cry of relief.

From the way Nebula immediately reaches for him, the jolt he thinks he gives is not only on his mind, but shakes his entire body, like a sharp shock bursting inside him. He almost asks her to repeat it, because it can’t be, oh God, is that true!?— when FRIDAY simply keeps going.

“I can still trace Miss Potts’ phone signal through my private server. I have detected twenty-four phone calls after the moment of the fall of the population, all made from the same phone. It is unlikely that someone else would have used the phone, considering that eight of those calls were made to your phone, Boss.”

Call her back.

“Stark—!” Nebula does grasp his shoulders tightly then, stopping him from rising to his feet too fast, keeping him firmly planted on the sofa.

“I’m not— I have to call her back.” Tony exclaims between tight lips, the words strangled between his teeth, fighting against Nebula’s hands.

“Full report.” Nebula hisses back, her jaw just as tight, and Tony very nearly tells her to fuck off when FRIDAY keeps talking over them both, ignoring their dispute.

“Calling Miss Potts, Boss.”

And almost immediately, what answers from the other side of the line is—

Tony!?”

Her voice.

(Alive.)

Tony can hear his blood roaring in his ears, loud and chaotic, deafening, and past it all he exhales shakily, nearly a sob, and answers her back.

Pep.” He exclaims, desperate, and he sounds like he is dying. “Pep, honey. Pepper.”

“Tony, oh my God!” Pepper screams back, ragged and distraught, her voice cracking over the speakers after a gasp so deep it sounded like it hurt. Tony can hear her close to the mouthpiece, her hitched breaths, her fear, and Tony aches with it so deeply he nearly falls over. “I thought— Tony. Tony, oh my God, where are you!?

But it’s hard, it’s hard to talk, it’s hard to listen past all the despair and the hurrying and the fretting, because Tony asks her “Where are you!? Are you okay!?” at the same time, they both equally terrified, and it is a long, panicked moment before either of them can stop to even think, let alone stop for long enough for the other to speak.

Suddenly, a wall places itself in front of him; Tall, secure, and blue.

Breathe.” Nebula commands him in a low voice, holding by his shoulders and leaning down to look at his eyes, drilling the order into his mind with her unrelenting stare.

Tony blinks rapidly when faced with the darkness inside her eyes, the constellations lost in them flashing before him in a second, and he stops, just as Pepper stops as well, and they both struggle to regain air fast, both too eager to speak, too despaired to let silence grow again and deceive them with the idea the other is gone.

Tony regains his bearings first, because Nebula’s cold hands keep him grounded. As Pepper wheezes and struggles to regain breath, Tony looks up and finds Nebula’s eyes upon him, hard as steel, and the strength in them, that has not wavered a single inch since she helped him rise from Titan’s soil days ago, helps him finds footing of his own.

(Breathe.)

(No threat.)

(Together.)

He nods at her, still a little out of sorts, but Nebula, without breaking her strong gaze, nods back, and Tony gulps to halt any more frenzied words that try to leave his mouth, and forces them to sound calm as he speaks again.

“Where are you?” Tony asks Pepper, raising his head a little so he can speak in the direction of the speakers on the ceiling. “Are you safe?”

“I’m at Mount Sinai.” Pepper replies, still shaky.

(A hospital?)

“Are you alright!?” Tony inquires nervously, holding himself tightly on the sofa’s cushions with fear. “Pep!?”

“I’m alright, Tony, I’m okay!” Pepper assures, hastily. “I’m not hurt.”

“Why are you in a hospital if you’re not hurt!?”

“I’m helping anyone who is.” She growls fiercely, and Nebula throws a glance at him, his expression betraying a hint of curiosity at Pepper’s callous tone.

But Tony is not paying attention to it.

“Tony, there’s… There’s so many people here.” Pepper exhales, crushed, and the tears that threaten to fall are obvious even through the call, because he can hear her voice crack at the edges and the wetness garbling her speech. “Even after— What happened? Where were you? What is going on?

(Where were you?)

(Where were you, Tony?)

The voice at the back of Tony’s head is all-consuming, evil and malicious, and it threatens to swallow him whole.

It sounds like Thanos.

“Is Happy with you?” Tony urgently asks, throwing darks thoughts aside the best he can, even if it’s not much help at all. Now is not the time for self-pity. Now is not the time to sit down and cry about his own ridiculous fallings. He needs to know what happened. He needs to know how deep the cut is, how hard the blow.

How heavy the loss.

“No.” Pepper sobs. “I don’t know where he is. I can’t reach him. He just—”

(Gone.)

(He’s just gone.)

Fuck.

Fuck.

“I have to find her.” Tony whispers to Nebula, his voice too soft for the speakers to pick up, his panic hidden from Pepper’s ears by his hushed tone. “I have to bring her here.”

“You are wounded.” Nebula growls back, equally hushed, and pushes Tony down by his shoulders when he attempts to get up. “If you don’t stop running around you will bleed to death.”

“I can’t leave her there alone!” Tony hisses, infuriated. “She’s still alive, she’s still here, and I’ll not sit here while she’s alone in whatever shithole Thanos has left behind for us.”

“And what of the others you want to find?” Nebula reminds him firmly. “While you leave to save one, others might be hurting.”

Fuck. She’s got a point. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

(Think, Tony.)

(Think!)

“Okay.” Tony says loudly after a beat passes, and— no, it’s not okay, fuck, it’s not, but what else can he do!? “Okay. Pep, honey, listen to me. Can you make it back to the Compound?”

“The Compound?” Pepper exclaims, agitated. “Tony—”

“Honey, please.” He begs, his body pushing forward against Nebula’s hands, unconsciously, trying to reach closer so Pepper can feel him, even though it’s futile. “I still need to look for whoever is left. I can’t do that from anywhere else. I need FRIDAY to help me.”

“I have no way of getting there.” Pepper reminds him, harshly. “Every single road is blocked! I’ve been in this area for days, no one can leave. I can’t walk all the way back to the Compound.”

Without even thinking about it, Tony finds a solution to that. “FRIDAY. Release 1-R.”

“Will do.”, is the only interruption FRIDAY gives, before falling silent once more.

Pepper, on the other side of the call, makes a distressed noise. “What’s 1-R? Tony?”

“I’m picking you up— FRIDAY is picking you up, ok?” Tony unhelpfully explains. “She’ll be there in…”

“11 minutes, Boss.” FRIDAY informs.

“11 minutes.” Tony repeats, dumbly. “If you just sit tight and wait a little longer, FRIDAY will get there and make sure you’re safe, alright? She’ll bring you here. She’ll—” and he gesticulates like a madman, into nothing, despite the fact she cannot see him through a mere voice call. Tony lets out a deep breath, that comes off broken and exhausted, stuttering inside his throat as it comes free, trembling just like the rest of him, and it barely does anything to calm him down at all.

But he must pretend. He can’t break down now.

(Not yet.)

“It’ll be fine.” He assures Pepper, and prays it is enough for now.

Pepper stays silent for a long minute, until she says, in a rush of breath of her own:

“Okay. Alright. Okay. I’ll… I’ll see you soon.”, and just as she does, someone speaks, on her side of the call, and Pepper lets out a sound close to the speaker that is too distressed for Tony not to immediately become alert.

“Pep, is everything alright?”

“It’s okay, I’m okay.” Pepper assures, distractedly. “It’s just— There’s a lot of people here, Tony, and there’s a woman that needs my help.”

“What’s going on?” Tony insists.

“Tony, I gotta go, I gotta—”, something falling, and a cry. “I’m in the middle of something. But you’ll come, right? You’ll pick me up?”

“FRIDAY is almost there.” Tony affirms with full confidence, even though he’s not sure if that’s actually true. “Just hold on. She’ll be right there.”

Pepper agrees but doesn’t hang up. Neither does Tony. The moment lingers, because they don’t want to hang up, they don’t want to, but there is a rising of sound on Pepper’s side of the line and she sounds like someone is speaking close to her, trying to gather attention. Tony can hear the movement as Pepper pulls her phone away to give a reply to someone, something about food, and about a boy, and Pepper is muttering hasty agreements and moving swiftly, the rustle of her clothes audible even over the call.

Tony is going to hang up. He is. But before he does, Pepper says one last thing.

“Tony?”, she calls, hesitantly.

And Tony wants to answer back with soft, hopeful words, wants to offer comfort and call her pet names, wants to feign normalcy because all else he can provide her is useless, she beats him to it with the cruelest of questions.

“Who else is left?”

(Who else is left?)

(How many are gone?)

Tony chokes on air, and admits, “I don’t know.”

And when the call ends, it feels like failure.

Nebula crosses her arms, a gesture that seems more uncomfortable than aggressive, and mumbles, as Tony sits miserably in front of her, head in his hands, breath shallow and heart unsteady. “That is why I said full report.

Tony shakes his head. “I had to talk to her.”

“Was that really a good idea?”

“It was the only one I had.” He shrugs one shoulder, and offers no more explanation, because he has none to give.

Tony isn’t really thinking anymore. Not for full moments. The nagging pain in his left arm is starting to make itself known, the stress of being alert and deflating, over and over, his heart speeding with adrenaline in so many alternate spikes over such a short span of time a strain too great for his battered body. He digs his fingers into his eyes, wishing he could just wipe away the exhaustion and strain off them, wishing he could go to sleep and let this all be a nightmare.

He’d take nightmares, now. He’d take anything.

Pepper is alive. God, she is alive, and that is – Tony can’t believe how fucking grateful he is for it. She’s alive. He should be happy. He should feel his heart a little lighter, but it doesn’t happen.

Because there are others. There are so many others, and what does it matter if one of the people Tony loves is still here?

(He still lost.)

(Will Pepper still love him, when she realizes what he has done?)

(How useless he is?)

(Will she still recognize him, when she sees him?)

Nebula doesn’t say anything to his lousy reply. The silence stretches too far, for too long, and it feels like an eternity after FRIDAY finally picks up again and says, in a quiet voice, “Shall I continue with the report, Boss?”

Tony sniffs, feeling his nose uncomfortably runny and his eyes stinging, and yet he says “Yes.”, because he has no other choice.

(Get up.)

(Get on the ship.)

(Breathe.)

(Report.)

“What about Rhodey? Where is he?” he asks, worriedly. “Is he alright?”

“Colonel Rhodes is not at the Compound, but he is alive.” FRIDAY informs plainly. “I have access to the War Machine suit, including audio comm and video surveillance, and the suit is still working. I can also hear Colonel Rhodes’ voice through the audio channel. He is alive.”

“Oh, thank God.” Tony exhales, but doesn’t allow his body any more time to deflate again. “Who else? The Compound is empty, where is everyone?”

“Evacuation protocol ensured all were removed from the premises within the hour of the attack, Boss. The only ones left after were Colonel Rhodes and Doctor Banner.”

Bruce?” Tony splutters. “Is Bruce with Rhodey?”

FRIDAY makes a strange, very calculated pause, before replying. “Yes. Doctor Banner has accompanied Colonel Rhodes when he left. According to the Hulkbuster armor, Doctor Banner was injured, but he is alive.”

The Hulkbuster. They took the Hulkbuster. Shit.

(And yet.)

(And yet—!)

“Where are they?” Tony asks with a frown, his brows drawn close together in deep concern. “Are they still in New York?”

“No. According to the last available data, Both Dr. Banner and Colonel Rhodes were in Wakanda at the moment of the attack.”

Wakanda.

(Oh.)

(Of course.)

Tony wishes he could say he is surprised, but he truly, truly isn’t.

(Not now, Tony.)

Nebula frowns at his lack of reaction, and shrugs at him. “Is that important?”

And it is, to him, and Tony has no idea how he should explain it to her. He’s not even sure if he should. It doesn’t matter. Not now. It shouldn’t matter, and yet, here he is, hesitating over a simple implication, not even a confirmation of his suspicions. It means nothing.

But because Tony is Tony, and he can’t fucking help himself, he asks FRIDAY:

“Has anyone else been to the Compound while I was out?”

FRIDAY knows exactly what he is asking, and that is why she hesitates before replying. “Captain Rogers has, Boss.”, she says, carefully. “So did the Black Widow, the Falcon, the Scarlet Witch and Vision.”

Of course.

(Not right now.)

(Please, don’t do this now.)

Now is not the time.

He knows that. Past the haze of… of something that clouds his thoughts, thick and heavy, like the fog that slithers between the buildings outside, he knows he is being nonsensical. But that realization only comes a fraction too late, after the instinctive, nearly malicious thought has already manifested in his brain, a quick blink of bitterness, of something dark and painful he has been pushing down for years now.

(Of course they were here.)

(Of course.)

“When?” Tony inquires, half-heartedly.

“A few hours after your disappearance.” FRIDAY says, “They interrupted a video conference between Colonel Rhodes and Secretary Ross, and soon after, Colonel Rhodes suited up and followed them to Wakanda.”

Tony lets out a terrible, terrible laugh, scratchy and sour, that hurts his chest as it comes out. “Oh, great. That is just— That’s just incredible, isn’t it?”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Tony sees Nebula shoot him a glance as if he has just lost his mind.

Maybe he has. Who knows?

(Not now, Tony.)

He gulps dryly, shaking his head minutely to disperse his sour thoughts, and then mumbles, “Are they alive? Can you tell me if they are alive?”

“Are you sure, Boss?” FRIDAY asks.

“If they’re gone, they’re gone, FRIDAY.” Tony bites, and then immediately regrets and backs down. “I just— I need to know.”

As FRIDAY gathers herself to say the news, Tony hangs his head, his neck tired and achy from too long without proper rest, and the stretch of his tendons on his nape make his entire spine light up in tight pain as his head lulls forward. Still, he endures it, and doesn’t raise his head. It’s too heavy.

He offers his nape like a condemned offers theirs to execution. Just waiting for the blade to come down and cut them off from life.

All he has to do is wait.

As the blade comes down, cutting.

“The Falcon and the Scarlet Witch. They are both gone.” FRIDAY says, in a mournful tone. “So is king T’Challa.”

Tony closes his eyes, with all his strength, until it hurts.

(A blade on his neck.)

(Cutting deep.)

Christ, T’Challa, no.

“And Vision.” Tony murmurs, sullen. “Because Thanos got the stone, hasn’t he?”

FRIDAY confirms, quietly, as if she is mourning that particular loss much more personally than she should.

“Anyone else?” Tony insists, even though he doesn’t want to hear it.

“Yes.” FRIDAY says, automatically, but then her tone turns regretful, because she knows how Tony will receive the following news, and says, “It appears that James Buchanan Barnes has disappeared as well, Boss.”

The white noise that fills Tony’s ears is loud, a high-pitched, monotone screech, like a flatlining heart monitor, and he stares at nothing with his eyes hazy, wide and shocked, and his heart beating a tattoo against his Reactor, hot against cold, absolute dread pouring in him like a flood.

(Barnes is dead.)

(Barnes is—)

(Fuck.)

His left arm is shaking. It’s shaking so bad it hurts, it truly hurts, the pain blooming in his chest and bleeding towards the limb, like motor oil leaking through the tubes, and he holds it with his other hand, grip painfully tight, until his fingers turn pale.

“The others?” He asks, pained.

“Alive, Boss.” FRIDAY says, in a low tone. “They’re alive.”

Tony lets out a shuddering sigh, running his hand over his mouth and chin in an effort to keep himself silent, the pressure on his lips as a reminder to keep them closed. He feels a hand touch his shoulder, a brief, fleeting comfort, awkward and uncertain, but present.

I’m here. I’m sorry, Nebula says, with no words.

Without looking at her, slightly too conscious of the way he leans into her touch, Tony calls:

“FRI.” Tony says, lowly, “Call Rhodes.”

FRIDAY says no word in compliance, but her silence is confirmation enough – and Tony waits for the call to connect with such anxiousness and adrenaline he can barely stay still. There is no ringing tone, because no AI of Tony’s would ever ring, even if the silence now feels even more dreadful than it ever did before. Tony can count the beats of his heart while he waits, the strong, pounding rhythm inside him, the bead of sweat that’s tricking down his spine, from the stress, from the rush, and he feels more and more sick with each passing moment.

This one takes a long time. The quiet is so profound that when the call finally connects, the amount of noise that comes from the other side is scary and surprising, full of loud voices and strange sounds, until one voice resounds louder than all others around it.

“—what the hell--!”

But that voice, Tony would recognize anywhere. “Rhodey?”

A gasp, a splutter, and then, finally, a reply.

Tony?

“Rhodey!” Tony exclaims, buzzing with restless energy.

“Tony, you— Tony! Tony!” Rhodey exclaims, winded. “Oh, you son of a bitch, you— You’re alive, Tony.”

The absolute exasperation in Rhodey’s voice, the same raw, uncontainable fear Tony feels inside himself – the confusing mix between elation and dread, between relief and painful realization, Tony can hear it in Rhodey’s voice and much as he can feel it in himself, and he can’t help but the way it makes him remember of next time, you ride with me, and the otherworldly feelings that come attached to it. Feelings that surpass his ability to describe them, feelings that still make him feel like his stomach is collapsing into itself when he thinks about it for far too long, his gut tight and overwhelmed, make him feel helpless and small and so, so lonely, and Rhodey’s presence seems like a beacon of light that reflects all the way from a distant past, from a mirror of a horror Tony never truly left behind, to guide him home.

It makes him feel almost dizzy. It makes him feel childish.

(He wishes Rhodey was here.)

“Can’t kill me that easily, sour-patch.” Tony jokes, and if he sounds like he is about to cry, that’s because he is.

“Where are you?” Rhodey presses, completely undeterred by Tony’s dark humor. “Tell me right now, I’ll come to you, immediately, Tony. Is Pepper—?”

“Pepper’s ok.” Tony says, hiding his sniffle behind a swipe of his hand over his itchy nose. “She’s on her way to the Compound. She’s ok. She didn’t—”

Vanish.

(Like the kid.)

(Peter.)

“What about Happy?” Rhodey asks, frantic.

Tony’s silence is answer enough.

Shit.” Rhodey hisses. “Shit, shit— Okay, Tony, don’t move, do you hear me? You don’t move, I’m coming to get you, you and Pepper, so you stay still and don’t do anything. Are you hurt?

If he’s hurt?

(Yes.)

(He is.)

“No.” Tony answers. “Not at the moment.”

“Not at the— For fuck’s sake, Tony.” Rhodey growls, verging on hysterical. “Do you need to go to a hospital!?”

“Been to a hospital.” Tony says, and it’s not even a lie. “I’ll live.”

“Okay, good.” Rhodey huffs. “So stay there, stay still, and I’m coming to get you. Bruce is with me, he’s okay, and we’re coming to get you, alright?”

Tony mumbles an affirmative, and leaves it at that. He doesn’t ask who else is left. He doesn’t have to.

But Rhodey doesn’t tell him either.

While Rhodey is still on the line, Tony glances over at Nebula for a brief second before making an impulsive decision and saying, “Please don’t come in guns blazing. I have a friend over.”

“A friend?” Rhodey exclaims, toeing the line between furious and confused, but the sounds of the armor moving around the other side of the line is all Tony cares about.

“Yeah.” Tony replies, “Nebula. Real firecracker. Might try to bite you, but I promise she’s nice.”

Rhodey is talking to someone on the other side, hushed tones full of anxiety, as Nebula turns to him with a gaze so acid it makes him taste it at the back of his tongue. Tony almost shrugs at her, coy, but he’s not quite managing to pull the right expression off.

Rhodey interrupts their silent conversation with the oddest question ever.

“Friends of the raccoon?”

“The raccoon?” Nebula asks, flabbergasted, and almost a little offended – and Tony can’t really judge her, because it also doesn’t make any sense to him, but then, she asks, “He’s here?

And the day just gets more and more bizarre.

“Yeah, apparently she is.” Tony says into the speaker, even though Nebula spoke far too loud, so Rhodey definitely heard her himself. “So no shooting the blue android when you get here.”

There’s a sigh, deep and resigned, a sound Tony shouldn’t be as proud to recognize so easily from Rhodey’s lips, but he does. “Alright.” Rhodey says, “I’ll be there soon. Gimme five hours.”

“Aren’t you in Wakanda?” Tony can’t resist the urge to ask, not just to poke at him, but legitimately curious. Wakanda is at least nine hours away, even with the Quinjet.

Rhodey doesn’t even ask him how he knows that. He merely hisses, “Five hours. See you soon. Stay still, don’t move.”, before ending the call.

Tony lets himself sag back into his seat when the room goes silent again, feeling like he has just been hit with a truck, or an entire convoy of trucks – or maybe just a giant, purple alien with the biggest weapon ever created. It’s like he has been drained dry, his body just a husk, his head pulsating and aching incessantly, exhaustion seeping into his bones like stains into cloth. Not even the kind of exhaustion that would make him shut down and sleep for days, because that type of exhaustion Tony knows far too well. No, the kind of exhaustion that makes him feel like his limbs are about to fall off, all strength of his body melting and dripping away, while his mind is too alert to shut down properly, as his body does.

(And now—)

(What?)

What does he do? What does he do while he sits here, in his cold, wide, abandoned home, filled with dust and void of any comfort, while the people he needs close come to him? What does he do?

Tony doesn’t know how to wait. How to sit still. Even when the situation is dire and nearly hopeless, and sometimes it is hopeless, even then, Tony cannot stay still. It does against his very nature to still his hands and his racing thoughts, to accept defeat simply because he’s tired, because after so many years, it has been carved into him the idea that he can’t stop until he’s done. He can’t waste time. He can’t waste anything. Even when villains have stripped him down to the barest of his bones in the past, whether by trapping him in a cave or tearing the heart out of his chest, or ripping his friends and family from his arms, or attacking him, or whatever the hell they had done, even when Tony is beaten up and bleeding, he grabs whatever he can lay his hands on and forges himself a weapon, he digs his way out of hell no matter how he does it, because that’s what he does. He is Tony Stark. If Tony Stark can’t find a way to escape during the fire, who else will?

But this is not during. This is after.

After the invasion, after the attack, after the final verdict. They lost. That was the conclusion. And now… what?

How does he go forth from this?

Whatever is left from his world? From the universe?

A movement at the periphery of his vision draws his attention, and he realizes that all this time his bots have been standing right there, behind him. Surprisingly quiet. He had almost forgotten they were there. Tony looks at them and thinks, sorrowful, that he wishes he’d come home to a happy reunion. He wishes he could shrug off the weight that he feels like he’s dragging with him at every step, grab himself a cup of scalding hot coffee and head down to the workshop with them, throwing jokes into the air and pulling up screens with plans and schematics, immersing himself into work as if this day was just another day in his life.

But it’s not.

“Hey, you two.” He calls, “Why don’t you go down to the lab and grab me the toolbox? The blue one, you know which one it is. Bring it here. With all tools, Dum-E! No throwing the hammer at the wall again!” Tony is damn near screaming by the end of his sentence, because the bots just start running as soon as he mentions the lab, but it’s fine. It’s not like he was lying when he said they get restless when they stay still for far too long, because they do.

“Why do you need a hammer?”, Nebula frowns after they leave.

“I don’t, I just don’t want them to be here for this.”

She looks at him like he is the most pitiful creature in the universe, which, to be fair, Tony can’t find in himself the strength to disagree with right now.

“Time to hear the verdict.” Tony tells Nebula, not as a command or a reminder, but a simple, crude remark of a fact. This is it. They need to talk about this. They need to know, both of them. Tony has no idea what Nebula is or where she comes from, but if whatever has happened on Earth has happened everywhere, hearing it from FRIDAY will be just as fair as hearing it from anybody else.

(Although—)

(If Nebula brought him here, and never left to look for her people—)

(Chances are she doesn’t have anyone.)

(She probably doesn’t.)

“What happened, FRI?” Tony asks, softly.

FRIDAY’s reply is unusually subdued. “I don’t have all the data necessary to make a precise calculation—”

“Just…” Tony interrupts with a spazzy gesture of his hands, shaking his head. “Just tell me what you’ve got.”

A projection shows up in front of them, from the sensors on the floor next to the bar, where they used to watch the finals when they were all together in the common lounge. Days long gone, now. The blue hue of the screen matches the one in Tony’s chest, bathing the entire room in a soft, candid color, and Nebula gives a step back so she can focus better on the images, standing literally right by Tony’s side as FRIDAY gives the final report.

“After the attack in New York by the circular spaceship and after you were gone, Boss, no other invaders have been spotted in the United States.” FRIDAY informs, and as she does, she pulls up various images from cameras on the streets or nearby establishments that managed to capture any images of the Flying Donut descending in New York and Tony’s fight with Strange and Wong against the creepy mummy alien. “Ten hours after you followed the attacker leading the spaceship and the capture of Dr. Strange, Captain Rogers and the rest of the Avengers entered the building to meet Colonel Rhodes and Doctor Banner, interrupting Colonel Rhodes’ meeting with Secretary Ross.”

This is incredibly bad news.

“In the middle of a meeting with—!? You gotta be kidding me.” Tony scoffs, wry and tired, running his hands through his face roughly. “There was no better time to do a great, dramatic entrance? Really?”

FRIDAY’s reply is very careful and tentative. “If it is any better, Secretary Ross has been completely silent over the last two days. I have no way of tracking him without your explicit permission, but from public data, he has not been seen by any camera I can access in the last 48 hours.”

Tony’s eyebrows raise almost all the way to his hairline and he blinks, confusedly. “At all?”

“No, Boss.”

“Oh.” He says, out of his depth. “Well. I guess that’s that.”, and fuck if that is not one the most awkward and insensitive things Tony has ever said, but… what else can he say, huh? About Ross?  “You have footage?”

Without any more prompting, the screen shows up from the center projector and overlaps the others, and a video starts playing, obviously taken from FRIDAY’s personal records, a footage exhibiting the inside of the compound, the conference lounge right next to the workshop.

Rhodey is in his braces, as he always is, these days, because Tony had finally gotten them right and fixed the ankle joint problem, and the structure is now so lightweight that Rhodey can use it for hours without even feeling any discomfort or restraint.

In the video, Ross is saying something that Tony doesn’t care about, but he guesses it has to do with the fact that he had just disappeared into the atmosphere inside an alien spaceship and Rhodey had been down here alone, Vision still off the radar and no other heroes in their official roster to compensate Tony’s absence. He knew that would be a problem, eventually, but he had been putting off finding a solution for that, whatever solution that’d be. And both Rhodey and Ross know that, because by the way they are speaking, Ross wants his head on a fucking silver platter and Rhodey is giving him nothing, like the true soldier that he is.

Until, Rhodey says that thing.

And out of the corner, as the drama queen Tony always knew he was, Rogers comes strutting, with Natasha right behind him like a guardian angel, and Wilson and Maximoff trailing behind supporting an injured Vision between them.

Oh, God.

(They—)

Is that a—?

(There is so much going on in this video.)

“They were attacked?” Tony interrupts both FRIDAY and his own thoughts, focusing on Visions’ wound, worried.

“In Scotland.” FRIDAY replies, and as she pulls up more screens to show whatever footage she managed to find from Scotland, and there it is – Wanda, being shoved inside a store through the window, breaking the glass and falling on top of chairs and tables.

“You have images of the attackers?” Nebula asks, frowning.

FRIDAY pulls up another footage, from what looks like the inside of a train station, and two very alien things show up at the screen, one big, stupid-looking guy, that looks kind of like an evil elf or whatever the hell he is; and a woman, with blue designs on her face, horns, and the most hollow eyes Tony has ever seen.

Proxima Midnight.” Nebula growls, venomously.

Tony turns to her, quirking an eyebrow. “You know them?”

“Yeah, I do.” Nebula huffs, but instead of elaborating, turns her eyes to the ceiling and asks FRIDAY, “And from the attack in this city?”

FRIDAY complies with no additional prompting, and one of the back screens comes forward, zooming in on Squidward as he walks down the street to meet them for their little conversation, Tony remembers that, and as soon as the image is clearer, Nebula twitches in disgust.

“Ebony Maw.” Nebula scoffs, and, if that’s any possible, her tone is even more bitter than it was before.

Tony almost repeats his previous question, when a flash of realization passes through him, instinctive, and he affirms, instead of merely ask: “You recognized his ship. While we were up there.”

Nebula squeezes her jaw very shut, grinding her teeth.

“How do you know who they are?” Tony squints, confusedly.

“They call themselves the Black Order. Thanos’ personal guard.” She explains.

“His children.” Tony adds, and Nebula throws him a look. “The Mummy mentioned that. Children of Thanos. Although I don’t think he meant literally.”

“Thanos kidnaps children from the planets he destroys, and forces people to join his cause.” Nebula spits furiously. “He collects them, like pets.

“So Thanos sent his murderous children first, to get a feel of the terrain, and then came personally to finish the job.”

(After I failed to stop him.)

(After he took the Time Stone from them.)

(In exchange of his life.)

“He wouldn’t have come without the soul stone.” Nebula comments, as her eyes go unfocused for a moment. “He came for Gamora first.”

Tony remembers Gamora. Nebula’s sister. After the entire debacle of Where, Who or Why is Gamora, after Quill shoved his fist into Thanos’ face after he realized Thanos must’ve hurt – killed – her, how could he not?

Not like Tony will be able to forget it now. Quill’s reaction when talking about her, to Thanos’ face, his grief and his despair, the tears he was holding back as he tried to take revenge—

Almost like—

(No.)

(Shut up.)

(Not now.)

“Did she have the stone?” Tony asks Nebula, trying his best to recall all he could about the gauntlet in Thanos’ hand, and the stones already attached to it when he arrived in Titan. There had been how many of them? Four, right? A purple one, a blue one, a red and an orange. And then the Time Stone – green. Yes, four.

One of them must’ve been the Soul Stone. The one he took right before following them to Titan.

“She knew where it was.” Nebula explains, “A barren planet named Vormir. She was the only one who knew. He took her, and he killed her. And came back with the stone alone.”

“You knew.” Tony points out, half as a question and half as an affirmation. “I mean, you just said where it was. You knew.”

“Thanos wouldn’t have picked me. Not over her.” Nebula twitches, and Tony realizes she has just stopped herself from shaking her head despairingly, locking her gaze on the projections and not turning to look him in the eye. “She was his favorite. He used me to make her talk.”

Tony takes in a very careful breath. “His favorite?”

Nebula makes a pause – a moment that falls heavy before them, like it’s a living thing, solid and there, until Nebula slices through with a whisper that is so soft that almost dissolves into the air.

“Daughter.”

Gamora.

Thanos’ daughter.

Quill’s girl. 

(Nebula’s sister.)

Tony gulps, and his hand unconsciously closes in on the soft cushion of the couch, his fingers digging uncomfortably into the seat. “Thanos was your father?”

“I was Thanos’ prisoner.” Nebula snaps, but with not enough heat. “As was Gamora.”

Tony bites his lip a little, his teeth worrying into his chapped, dry bottom lip with a stinging force, the taste of the dirt and sand on his skin pungent on his tongue, a flavor that is, somehow, less stifling than the bile rising up with throat at the very idea that Nebula presents to him.

Daughter of Thanos. Daughter, huh.

(What does that motherfucker know of children?)

No, really – what does he know? Genocidal, crazy, completely insane alien, that came around clamoring for blood, to wipe away half of the entire humanity; Elders, men, women and children. Like the child that had been out there on the street for days, rotting away, forgotten, left behind by whoever was with him when Thanos’ final blow hit.

What does he know?

These are his children? Bloodthirsty maniacs, armed with psychic powers and weapons and spears, that descended from the skies to bring chaos and dust, to invade their lives and rip their loved ones from their arms without so much as blinking an eye? These are his children – The ones that helped Thanos take Pete way, a kid, with no mercy, with no… no chance of trade or choice?

Nebula, one of these children? Of the Black Order?

No.

Tony looks up at the screens, at the video footages of Proxima Midnight and Ebony Maw, and he stares at them for a very, very long time.

No.

Not his daughter. Not Thanos’ daughter. Thanos’ prisoner.

“Alright.” Tony says, sounding winded and pretending to ignore the fact completely, slapping the sofa cushion beneath him in a completely out of place action, merely to hold back the instinct to pull Nebula close. “Crap family, huh? Welcome to the club.”

Nebula’s expression falls, her hardened mask crumbling down, for the briefest of moments – and behind it, Tony finally sees something, the something he knew was there ever since Nebula held that boy in her arms out there on the street, that soft, wavering fragility she was keeping hidden under so many walls and so many hard glares and snares.

When her mask slips off, Tony sees the most profound sadness in them, swirling inside the depths of her eyes like creatures hiding in the bottom of the sea, untouched by light all their lives, existing knowing only darkness and cold.

Tony can’t help the twinge of pain that grips his heart, the sorrow, the understanding, and the movement of raising his hand and touching Nebula’s forearm is completely involuntary, born of an instinct so deep he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it until after he has done it, and Nebula gives the smallest of twitches when his warm – too warm – hand touches her cold metal arm.

The subject drops between them, and neither of them mentions it again.

It’s probably better this way.

“So.” Tony clears his throat after a few moments, taking his hand away in the least awkward possible. “Things 1 and 2 attack Earth, Mummy gets Strange into the ship but the other two don’t manage to get the Mind Stone. Rogers pulls a Spanish Inquisition on Ross and brings them here—” and it takes a lot of effort to say this as calmly as he says everything else. “—, they grab Rhodey and Bruce and head to Wakanda?”

“Yes.” FRIDAY agrees, back to her formal tone and efficient organizing. “According to footage of the War Machine armor, sixteen hours after they were already in Wakanda, preparing for battle with the aid of King T’Challa.”

“Take battle to Wakanda, and T’Challa tries to end them away from the rest of the world. Clever.” Tony murmurs to himself, thinking out loud.

“But Thanos arrived.” Nebula reminds him, sourly.

“Thanos arrived.” Tony agrees, sullenly. “And he took Vision’s stone.”

FRIDAY’s silence is all the agreement he is going to get.

“And then?” He presses.

“I do not… fully know.” FRIDAY admits. “Colonel Rhodes was not present at the very moment Thanos unleashed his final attack, so the footage from the War Machine armor does not disclose fully what happened, but mere moments after the last attack Colonel Rhodes received himself, the effects of the final attack of Thanos began to occur.”

(Oh God.)

(Here it comes.)

The sheer amount of apprehension he feels makes everything feel foggy, and Tony has to blink a lot to make sure he won’t simply pass out from the light-headedness now, because he has to hear this.

“People have… disappeared, Boss.” FRIDAY says, “Vanished. Into thin air.”

(Here it comes.)

(Here it comes.)

Tony breathes, as calmly as he can, and asks, “How many?”

“There were three separate units in King T’Challa’s—"

“Around the world, FRIDAY.” Tony interrupts harshly. “How many?”

“I cannot tell with only our private satellites, Boss.” FRIDAY regretfully answers. “I would need your permission to extend my reach of research and produce a more accurate estimation of the numbers.”

SHIELD’s satellites are probably still running, he guesses. Fury used to have the biggest database in the world, the very own database HYDRA tried to use when Rogers stopped their attack in Washington in 2014, and if there’s one thing that Tony is sure of, more than anything else, is that Nick Fury is a wary, sneaky son of a bitch, and that database has not been abandoned even if he went underground.

“Alright. Permission given.” Tony waves a hand in the air, shaking his head. “Hit me.”

“According to my calculations—” FRIDAY stutters, a glitch so brief and well-disguised that anyone who didn’t know her wouldn’t have caught it. But Tony has. Tony has because Tony made her, and Tony knows, he knows whatever is about to come is going to absolutely destroy him, but he has to hear it.  

“How many?” he whispers, and closes his eyes, wishing he could escape this.

FRIDAY pauses, hesitant, and says:

“There are approximately three billion people left, Boss.”

Three?

Three—!?

“It’s less than half.” Tony whispers horrified, rising to his feet. He accidentally pushes Nebula when he does, but he doesn’t feel it at all.

His body has just gone fully numb.

“How many were there before?” Nebula inquires, looking at him, but Tony is just staring ahead, unblinking.

“Roughly seven billion.” FRIDAY replies, quietly.

“That’s less than half.” Nebula also says, confused, horrified, and Tony lets out a wounded whimper when he hears it again, from someone else’s mouth, which makes it even worse, even more real.

“Less than half.” Tony says again, deliriously. “What is the precise number?”

FRIDAY pulls up a screen full of graphs and readings, heat-signatures and demographics, cross-checking information in real time, right in front of him – and a number, blinking uncertainly as many, many other documents and serves pass by behind it, calculations running wild before settling, slowly, into a number that will forever be etched into Tony’s mind.

2.946.392.081.

“With a five-million margin of error, Boss.”

Tony can’t fucking breathe.

(2.946.392.081.)

Approximately three billion rounding up.

It’s less than that.

Less than that.

“My calculations are not precise, Boss.” FRIDAY quickly reminds him, sensing his distress, from both inside and out, running in Tony’s veins through the biomarkers and pumping wildly into his core, and his lack of breathing and unfocused stare. “Heat signatures are not the most reliable way to calculate such a large mass—”

“What was the percentage?” Tony interrupts, shaken. “How much has it decreased, from two days ago?”

“Nearly 59 percent.” FRIDAY admits.

59 percent.

With one attack.

One strike, and Thanos took four billion people down.

(The best kind of weapon is the one you only have to fire once.)

“He was supposed to wipe out half the population” Tony says to FRIDAY, so she can consider that information in her calculations – but also as an explanation, and also as a disbelieving plea, and also as an apology, all wrapped in one. “Half. Where have all the others gone?”

A flash goes behind his eyelids, and he remembers dust, a street, and a boy.

“There have been accidents, Boss. Many accidents.” FRIDAY immediately says, sounding profoundly sad. “I’ve detected over twenty-five thousand immediate casualties, in the state of New York alone. Main causes include: car crashes, heavy machinery malfunction or mishandle, destruction of buildings and plane crashes. I also have registers of three emergency alerts being sounded within areas declared as biohazardous and in seventeen institutions that handle dangerous or sensitive biological and chemical substances and materials, during the first hour after the final attack.”

“Would that take out that many people? In such a short span of time?” Nebula asks.

“It is not only the accidents” FRIDAY informs, and as soon as she does, more screens pop up with various videos playing, a cacophony of disturbing sounds and too-fast images, all of them blurring together in his tired mind. “Riots have been detected in over thirty-three countries, often multiple riots in the same location only hours apart. People are stealing goods, mainly food, and it is possible that people have been hurt or even killed during these riots.”

Food.

Food, Pepper had said. Food, and something about a boy.

Starving, Tony realizes. It’s been two days, and people are already starving.

“Isn’t that what he wanted?” Tony whispers to himself, madly. “Less people, more food? Why are people starving?”

“Blocked roads stop the distribution of the food.” FRIDAY replies. “Those located closer to the source secured their own. And I fear that if this Thanos’ intention was to cut the numbers to allow more resources to those who remain… That is not what has happened.”

(Oh God. This sounds like is about to get worse.)

Worse?

But how can this get any worse?

“My readings also detect a massive decline in the total surface area of forests and vegetation. I am unable to calculate the percentage, but the visuals present evidence. I can form a projection to further clarify the results of the analysis.”

And she does – and the screen lights up with to different projections of the globe, one from days ago, and one rendered from the information she can obtain in real time.

Tony has seen images like this before. In conferences, in talks about environment restoration and protection, in many conferences Tony attended after he turned to green energy. He has seen estimates, the horror stories, of what would happen if they all continued to take, and take, and take, and left the planet bare.

It takes a moment for Tony to fully process what that information means, what exactly he is seeing when he stares at the two projections, side by side, and the one on the right just looks like a sick, destroyed sphere, in comparison to the image on the left.

The image of a decaying planet.

“He took plants too?” Tony frowns, his entire face scrunching up in dizzy confusion.

“And animals as well, we can logically assume.” FRIDAY adds.

“That makes no sense.” Tony pants, gesticulating helplessly. “He took everything? How is that—!”

“It’s what he does.” Nebula says through gritted teeth. “He takes. He doesn’t think.

“Where the hell does he think we take food from?” Tony exclaims, crazed. “How is that supposed to help us manage the resources? Taking away the resources?

Nebula stares at him worriedly. “Will you starve?”

“No.” Tony exhales harshly, struggling to keep himself in check. “We have other ways to produce food. And plants grow fast. Faster than us. But that doesn’t— It makes no sense. Why would he do that?”

But FRIDAY has no answers for him. Neither has Nebula. Either of them has answers.

But FRIDAY—

FRIDAY still has something more.

“I fear that is not the most pressing concern.” She says, darkly, and Tony shivers from head to toe, going stiff as a statue, his entire body locking up in anticipation like he’s preparing for a physical blow, because he is so fragile at this point that anything worse than what he has already heard will feel just as bad as the spear that went through his body and tore him open.

“And what is?” he fearfully asks, and dreads the answer with all his being.

But instead of outright saying, FRIDAY pulls up more additional data, replacing the projections of the Earth with close-ups of a clear sky on the left and a cloudy, dark, bleak shot of a huge swirling mist, so thick Tony could feel the phantom sensation of it in his fingers, could smell in his mind if he allowed himself to recall the scent.

It was what the sky looked like when they left the hospital, just like that. Filled with smoke and sulfur and clouds, blocking the sun, drenching the soil in gloom.

Next to the projections, other graphs pop up. Tony skims over them and reads words like pressure and altitude, and oxygen levels and precipitation, but he can’t focus on them long enough to actually interpret the ever-changing columns and pie charts, so it all jumbles inside his head in a mess he can’t even begin to imagine how he must untangle.

“What’s this?” He inquires, lost and helpless, unable to comprehend how any of this can be any worse than losing 59% of the population and half of all other things.

(But it is.)

(It is.)

But Tony hasn’t gotten it yet.

“This is the current mass of pollutants in the atmosphere, which has increased by over 400% in the last two days, by a sudden explosion of toxic fumes all over the world. Partially due to the accidents in factories, research centers, hospitals, and many other facilities, but also the increase of—"

Dust.” Tony says, his mouth working faster than his brain, that is still struggling to catch up, still struggling to make that last connection, as if it’s holding back on purpose, as if it doesn’t want to let him go on.

The air.

The air.

(What about the air, Tony?)

“Yes.” FRIDAY says. “If gathered footage is to be believed, and the vanishing of half the world population has occurred by turning them into dust—”

“The ashes.” Tony sobs. “They have all turned into ash, and the wind blew them away.”

Tony can see it happening in his mind’s eye, the memory so clear it hurts to look at it, like a too-bright screen or directly looking into a flashlight, a tunnel of white burning directly into his retinas, branding a photograph into his brain he’ll never be able to burn off.

(Peter, turning into ash.)

(Dissolving in his arms.)

(The wind blowing him away, into nothing.)

(Into space.)

(But what about those who were down here, Tony?)

“If they have turned to ash—” FRIDAY repeats, because she knows Tony isn’t listening, she knows what is happening to him, and she’s still talking. “Even if each person had only dispersed ten grams, it would still amount to over three hundred tons of chemicals and particles, without accounting for vegetation and animal life, or particles that have been released into the ocean and other bodies of water—"

The air they’re breathing, that everyone else who’s left is breathing, is full of ashes.

The haze in the city. The grey sky. The dust on top of his bots. The thing choking up Tony’s lungs when he tries to breathe in too deep.

Ashes.

Of those who fell.

“—The sun is not breaching the troposphere as it should. The decrease in sun incidence should affect the remaining vegetation and animal life, as well as—"

He’s breathing—!

Everyone is breathing in ashes of the people who are gone.

“Boss.” FRIDAY says, curtly. “At this rate, the numbers will keep depleting. Until there is no one left.”

Thanos is going to fucking exterminate them, like the meteor did with the dinosaurs, burying them beneath dust and dark, until they wither away or suffocate to death. That’s what he’s going to do. Mass extermination, slow, drawn-out extinction, no escape.

This is punishment. Shit, this is it, isn’t it? This is – This is – This is judgment, because it can’t be anything else. How – How can this happen?  This can’t be happening.

They are all going to die, choking on the ashes of those who already did.

(Oh God.)

(He wants to die.)

(This can’t be it.)

(It can’t be.)

“No.” Tony says out loud, without even meaning to, pacing around like a madman. “No, no. No. This can’t happen.”

“Stark—”

It can’t happen.” Tony barks back at whoever spoke, because he’s not coherent enough to discern which one of them was. “It can’t happen like this.”

“What are you going to do—!?”

“FRIDAY.” Tony calls loudly.

“Yes, Boss?” FRIDAY responds over the low snarl Nebula gives in protest.

“I need you to find me whoever you can. Fury, Hill, Selvig, Foster, Cho, whoever is left.”

“Right away.” FRIDAY readily complies.

“Also see if you can find Barton and Lang. And Hank Pym, maybe. And—”

And Tony chokes, his rage subsiding into a shy flame, muffled by the deepest shame and sorrow he has ever felt.

“And May Parker.”

“Yes, Boss.” FRIDAY says, and goes silent to finish her duties.

And in the quiet she leaves in her wake, Tony breathes, and breathes, and breathes, and every breath is a stab in his heart.

(Every breath is something unholy.)

(Something vile.)

May Parker. Jesus fuck, what will he say to May Parker – if she’s still alive, even? What will he say?

What will he say?

(I lost the kid.)

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

(I would have done anything. I would have sacrificed myself for him. I would have.)

But he was taken from me.

He was taken, and I couldn’t stop it.

(I would have given my life for his.)

Because I wasn’t enough.

Tony will never be able to dream again. Never again, he knows. He will die like this, wide-awake, his nightmares following him around just like death seems to, leaving their footprints wherever he goes, dragging his soul behind him bit by bit, stealing every single speck he still has, until he is dry and left with nothing. Tony will waste away in all the ways except the one Thanos didn’t give him, and he knows it because he knows what feels like. Knows it all too well. Knows it, like he knows his very heart.

He’d really thought he’d be able to get through this, didn’t he? Stupid Tony. Stupid, naïve Tony. He really thought he could win.

(What a laugh.)

He’d thought he would be fine. He truly thought he’d be able to get a real life. To live peacefully. To be happy. He really thought that.

He had Pepper by his side again, he had her love, he had her company. He had Rhodey, walking and fighting, as fierce and relentless as only Rhodey could be, and always, always in his corner. He had Happy, a man he trusted with all his heart, he had SI, he had FRIDAY.

He had—

He had the kid.

But then—

(And he let it happen.)

(He lost the kid.)

Pete hadn’t been his own, Tony knows that. Tony knows, in his rational mind, that Pete was, at most, a mentee or a protégé, and that’s all. The kid had his own family, after all. He had his Aunt, and his friends, and all the people that already existed in his life before Tony came around. Tony was not his father. Tony knows that.

But—

But the kid…

God, fuck, the kid had been his. His to care for, his to teach, his to protect. When Tony got the warning that he had fallen into the lake, when he got involved with the Vulture guy behind Tony’s back, when he realized Pete had been inside the spaceship, Tony’s heart had beaten so wildly with fear and apprehension he thought he might die.  Tony would’ve died for that kid with no questions asked. He wouldn’t have hesitated in sacrificing himself if that meant Pete would still be here. When Strange – When Strange warned him he’d let Tony and Peter die, if that meant he’d save the Time Stone, Tony just… Tony just knew, right then.

It won’t be necessary, he could’ve said.

I’ll throw myself into the fire so that kid won’t have to. So the kid will be safe.

But he never even got the chance to try.

“I’m sorry.” Nebula mumbles, and Tony can hear the way it hurts her to say it, hurts her throat and it hurts her heart. Tony wishes he could give her condolences too, but if he opens his mouth now and tries to speak, he will burst into tears.

He lets himself fall back to the couch and buries his face in his hands, bending helplessly until his forehead almost touches his knees, and he stays there, beaten down, broken, holding back hot-stinging tears with all his might, biting into his lip with such strength he cuts it open and the copper bursts into his mouth, viscous and foul, and he thinks he deserves it.

“This is what he does.” She says, words heavy with grief. “He invades, planet to planet, and wipes out half of the population. And the rest…”, she stops, and shakes her head, “The rest never recovers or dies slowly until there’s nothing left.”

Nothing left. Until there is nothing left.

(What if it already has?)

(What if Tony already has nothing else to give?)

“He did the same thing to me” Nebula explains, “And to Gamora. And to his own planet. He always does it.”

“So you’re telling me we have no way out?” Tony interrupts, hysterically. “That we all should accept we’re going to go extinct in a few weeks and I should just sit by and let it happen?

“Years, if you’re lucky.” Nebula says with no tact at all, all hard facts and steel will, her hands balling into fists, shaking in her lap. “And no. You shouldn’t.”

Tony stares at her, paralyzed in despair, and as she stares back, the iron-clad resolve that burns bright behind them is terrifying, and Tony can’t look away.

“What I’m saying is that you better be ready to do something, if you want to save your planet.”, she says, firmly.

Tony reminds himself that this is Nebula he’s talking to, probably one of the fiercest people in the universe, Thanos’ prisoner. She’s seen what he can do, up closer, probably closer than Tony is seeing now or saw in Titan. She knows how he acts and how he operates, and she is burning for revenge.

“And what’s in it for you?” he asks, cautiously.

Nebula’s face twitches unpleasantly, full of barely contained rage. “I want Thanos’ head.”

Tony huffs disbelievingly, shaking his head and pushing his body away, physically rejecting the idea before it can take roots in his brain. “Why do you think I’ll be able to give you that?”, he exclaims, pitifully. “What do you expect from me?”

“Thanos let you live.” Nebula points out.

“In exchange for the Time Stone.” Tony reminds her.

“Because he wanted to.” Nebula insists, and she starts to raise her voice with each and every word, her fury leaking through the cracks when the memories hit a little too close to home. “He had you. He had all of us. He would have killed me, he killed Gamora. He could have killed you too!” She stops, and takes a careful breath. “But he didn’t.”

Tony once thought, after Afghanistan, after too many sleepless nights and too much self-hatred, too many instances where he almost reached up and removed the freshly places Arc Reactor from his chest himself, he thought—

He’d said that if he was still alive after all that had happened to him, there should’ve been a reason for it.

He doesn’t believe that anymore. Or – he does, but at the same time, he doesn’t. He doesn’t have the strength to hold that though so close to his chest as he had before, to use it the same way he used the Arc Reactor, to keep his heart beating, to keep his promise to Yinsen alive. To remind himself not to waste his life.

“Why?” Tony asks, and it is almost a plea, a desperate request for an answer, for direction, for anything at all that will help him fill the void that has been carved deep inside him, like the vast darkness of the universe.

Nebula looks at him, and whatever she sees, it makes Tony frightened.

“Because something you did held him back.”

You’ve got my respect, Stark.

(Why is Tony still alive?)

“I took one drop of blood.” Tony pathetically says.

“More than I have.” Nebula huffs, bitterly. “You took something, Stark.”

“He took much more from me.”

“And you will take it back.” Nebula affirms, full of conviction, and Tony doesn’t have the heart to tell her how wrong she is, because he just can’t anymore.

But then—

Tony’s ears register the sound of the armor approaching even before his mind does. He knows it like the back of his hand. He can hear it approaching, soaring through the gloomy sky, heading straight to his direction, and he gets up hastily and shakes in his wobbly legs, looking out through the glass walls and into the great field surrounding the Compound, his eyes darting from side to side like a stranded man, looking for incoming help in the horizon.

Pepper.” He exclaims, and even as he limps unsteadily, even as his sides throb with the ache of his injuries that never find enough downtime to heal, he makes a quick run towards the elevator, Nebula getting up confusedly behind him and following his trail with an angry hey!, until they both cram themselves into the elevator with no care at all, as the door closes and FRIDAY takes them up in the direction of the landing pad.

“Are you out of your mind?” Nebula growls, and Tony ignores her in favor of rubbing his hands together, fidgety and anxious, watching the doors raptly and counting in his head the number of floors as they pass them.

As soon as the doors open, Tony maneuvers himself out clumsily and passes by Nebula, who stays inside proffering all sorts of insults and threats at him, but Tony doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care, because as soon as he steps out and the stifling heat of the outside hits him, the smell of sulfur and the gloom, gray tones of the sky—

There she is, descending on the landing pad, suited up, alive and safe.

There she is.

“Pep!” Tony screams, swallowing down his hiss of pain when he takes the first too-quick step in her direction, the adrenaline forcing him forward much faster and harder than he should, but he doesn’t stop. He climbs the small steps toward the center of the landing pad quickly, gritting his teeth through all the insufferable aches of his legs muscles, the heaving of his breath

“Tony! Tony!” Pepper screams back, and her voice is modified by the suit, her tone distorted by the speakers and muffles by the sound of repulsors, but it’s her, and Tony very nearly cries with relief.

It was just a precaution. Just a silly, paranoid idea, that he’d never thought she’d need.

Yet, here she is.

Using the suit Tony made for her. A suit he’d wished never came to see the light.

The suit touches down on the landing pad, and, as soon as it does, it starts to disassemble, the parts shifting neatly and opening up, revealing Pepper, rattled, and dirty and ragged, still in a formal white shirt and a pencil skirt, barefooted, her hair stuck into a mess of a ponytail and dirt smeared on her cheek, eyes bright and wide with terror and as breathless as he feels.

She is so pale. She looks like she hasn’t slept in years.

Tony all but runs towards her.

“Oh my God, Tony!” Pepper screams, ragged, and she opens her arms to him just as he opens his for her, and they collide together, with the force and intensity of a supernova. “Oh my God. Oh God.

“Pepper, honey.” Tony whispers into her hair, sweet nothings laced with despair, feeling himself shake in her arms so intensely he knows he’s moving her, but her hands go around his torso and settle against his back and they are shaking as well, her nails digging into skin, holding as tight as she can.

Her breath hitches when she grazes the bandages, the texture foreign to touch, and she looks at his belly with unconcealed terror.

“Is that a bandage? Are you injured!?”

“He was stabbed.”

Pepper lets out a startled sound, something that is almost a scream, and she jumps back and pulls Tony along with her, dragging them both closer to the armor, who responds to her distress and activates sentinel mode immediately, a mechanical arm holding up a repulsor ready to blast right over Tony’s right shoulder.

It all happens so fast that Tony is still blinking when he realizes Nebula has raised her arms and is glaring at him, furious.

Stark.” Nebula calls loudly, both as a warning and as a request for help, and Tony jerks.

“No, no, don’t shoot!” He puts his hands in front of the gauntlet, knowing the armor won’t shoot with obstructed sight. “She’s friendly!”

“Tony!” Pepper yells, disbelieving. “You brought an alien with you!?”

“More like she brought me with her.” Tony shakily replies, gesturing to Nebula behind him with a long sweep of his arm, a flourish both unnecessary but also totally unavoidable in his nervousness. “Nebula, this is Pepper, my fiancé. Pepper, this is Nebula, my…”

(What?)

“Your ride?” Pepper suggests, filled with sarcasm, but that is actually a fairly accurate description.

“You can say that.” He agrees, trying to lighten the mood so Pepper will back down, but he is still incredibly alert that the armor still hasn’t moved. “Lower the gauntlet, please, honey.”

“What?” Pepper frowns, exasperated.

“The gauntlet. Please.” Tony motions to the armor with his head, and when Pepper turns around, she exhales a soft oh, and nods at it, blinking confusedly, and it is only at her request that the armor complies and stands down, going back to resting position and deactivating the system until further requests.

With no small amount of hesitation, Pepper takes a step back from it, and looks shocked when it responds so efficiently. She whips her head back and looks at him, confused and says, in a tone Tony has heard far too many times not to recognize:

“Tony, this armor—"

“I included something for you.” Tony interrupts, already knowing what she will say, because it doesn’t matter. Not right now. “A system of your own. In case… you know.”

Pepper lets out an exhausted sigh, a sigh that becomes fearful and shaky midway, and all setbacks she might have about the armor are forgotten when she grips his arms and looks into his eyes desperately, then to his stomach, then to Nebula, standing as still as possible behind him, ready to pull out her weapons if anything else threatens her again.

Pepper looks up, into the sky, and only the gray – the ashes – look back.

And she asks him:

“What happened, Tony?”

And all Tony can say to her is the bitter truth.

“We lost.”

Notes:

Four years until the story picks up? Sitting idle inside the Compound, wallowing in guilt and loss until the end of days, waiting for a blessing from the skies to arrive? No, darlings. Here, we work with a time restraint. We work with the highest of stakes. We work with consequences.

Something the MCU should have considered. But if they didn't, I'll do it myself.

Be honest with me for a second: how many people have you seen mention the dust as a major problem in the aftermath of the snap? I've seen people mention the accidents. The food rationing. The riots. The anarchy. But the dust? Not a single person. And that called my attention - because at first, I thought the dust was simply a matter of special effects to make it visually heartbreaking; but then, after they were totally gone, the dust is gone as well, right? Wrong. I went back and rewatched IW just for the sake of this detail, and guess what? The dust doesn't vanish. It seems like it does, because nearly everyone that gets killed by it has their ashes blown by the wind, for dramatic effect.

But the very first one, Bucky, told me all I needed to know. When Bucky vanishes, his ashes fall to the floor and don't disappear. They stay there. Which means his ashes, as well as everybody else's, can be dispersed through the air and become one of the biggest problems for the remaining population of the Earth.

Oh, I was so sad when I first watched this scene in the theaters. Who could've known this would become the thing that puts a sadistic smile on my face as I write this? The world truly is full of surprises.

But there it is! There it is, folks! Pepper is here, and Rhodey is on his way - and not alone ;) We're about to open the world's biggest can of worms! Don't let this Pepperony reunion fool you, that SteveTony tag is firmly in place and it'll stay there - and I wonder if any of you have any idea how I'm gonna make that work, seeing I'm keeping Pepper alive and Tony still very much caring for her.

No easy way out, friends. I hope you're excited. And when the shit hits the fan, remember: you asked for this.

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

Notes:

I want talk about relationships for a second.

The relationship Tony has with other characters in the MCU is fundamentally different than that of the comics. Of course, the comics have had more than enough time to construct long-lasting friendships and romantic relationships for the characters over the years (even if they occasionally take one step forward, two steps backward, depending on what run you're reading), but my point is that if I want to describe the relationship between Tony and any other character in the comics, nearly every single time I will be able to come up with more material, from all kind of sources, than I would be able to do with the MCU. And that's a little difficult, because when the subject is Tony, a lot of things you learn about him don't come from the actions he takes for the sake of his own benefit or motivation, but the things he does for others and their comfort or safety. If MCU Steve is a creature that needs isolation and stagnation to feel pressured, Tony works in the exact opposite way - because while Steve will hold himself steady and not move, Tony will bend until he snaps his spine if that means someone he cares about won't get hurt.

And that's important. That's how we're gonna learn about him: Through his relationships.

To very truthful, up until now I have only grazed the surface of Tony's character. Barely made a scratch. I've been aching to write a more in-depth analysis of him, but the need to lay down the scenario held me back - and if I want to make this work, I can't hold back at all.

Tony has all sorts of problems buried beneath a façade he maintained for years, a special sort of self-defense that's very hard to break down. He has a good heart, but his mind is a daunting place. He is really, really good at twisting his own thoughts into dangerous directions - and to my despair, he is even harder to understand than Steve, because I hold him far too close to my own heart. I hope you can bear with me on this. My descent into Tony's mindset is going to be very difficult, and I suspect it's going to take a toll on both me and you, because to make it work, I'll have to pick apart every single one of his relationships, one by one, piece by piece.

And to do that, I need the right people to be present. So here it is. This is that chapter.

You came here for an Avengers reunion? Well. Here it is - And all the emotional baggage that comes with it.

You are all about to witness in detail one of my favorite parts of writing stories like this, from just one character's POV, unreliable narrator-style: interpretation of intention. To those of you who have read Part I, who have seen the long, agonizing journey I had Steve and his team go through, and all the emotional revelations that came with it - to you, the return of the Rogue Avengers is going to be... an interesting addition. Especially through Tony's eyes. I wonder if I made Steve go deep enough under your skin so you'd be able to recognize what is truly happening in this chapter, past Tony's personal vision of them. I sure am excited to try! What fun would it be if I didn't add another layer of difficulty in this already messed up situation? No fun at all.

So let's bring them to the game. And it's all downhill from here.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Pepper’s hands are warm. They never once leave him as they walk back inside together, stumbling on the steps and standing very close inside the elevator despite its spacious interior, with Nebula always hovering close by. Nebula, in turn, walks in a mixture of awkwardness and wariness that falls upon Pepper with the weight of stones, gaze burning hot at their napes, and although Tony feels it with acute precision, Pepper completely ignores it. Or maybe she doesn’t even realize it; It’s possible, given how exhausted she looks. Tony wants to ask her what happened, wants to try to do whatever he can to make this easier for her, even if he knows that Pepper isn’t the sort to share her troubled feelings easily – but he can’t quite make himself to do it, even if his mouth opens and closes awkwardly for a second, breath hiccupping and carrying no words forward, because he’s frankly too afraid to ask.

Tony has seen one street and that alone had brought him to his knees.

The idea of whatever Pepper had seen is so terrible that it only compares to his worst nightmares.

As the light shifts steadily with each floor the elevator passes by, Pepper closes her eyes for a moment, squeezing tight, her mouth twisted and brows scrunched together, and her grip on Tony’s arm becomes just a little tighter, her fingers digging steadily into his forearm. It hurts to watch more than it hurts to feel her nails sinking into his skin.

“Hey.” Tony calls softly, bringing his head closer to hers, because his heart aches when he sees her like this, and he can’t simply sit by and watch as her expression shifts into agony.

“I was so worried about you.” Pepper admits, in a whisper as soft as his own. Her eyes open, but she stares the doors with her gaze vacant, taking in breaths that are far too calculated to be natural. “I thought you were dead, Tony.”

Her grip gets tighter yet, and her fingers tremble.

“I tried to stop it.” Tony replies mutedly, helplessly, as an apology, as an explanation, and as a plea, because he really can’t say anything else about it.

He’s sorry.

God, Pepper can’t even begin to understand how sorry he is, how guilty he feels knowing she was down here all this time, watching the people vanish into nothing and with no idea what had happened to him, when she had desperately asked him to come back as soon as Tony had boarded the alien ship. She had asked for him. She asked him to stay, all but demanded he turned around, really, and Tony had ignored her.

She was down here all this time, alone, as the entire world collapsed around her.

And Tony knows there’s nothing Pepper fears the most than a tragedy she can’t fix or escape.

He’s sorry.

He wraps his arm around hers and pulls her closer, nearly squishing her to his side, and he hopes she understands.

He’s sorry.

Tony knows better than to believe Pepper is breakable, but he also knows better than to believe she is invulnerable. Tony knows her far too well. Tony knows what she’d probably done in these past two days – he can see it in his mind’s eye; Pepper, panicking under a calm expression and reigning in her own anguish so well that her hands wouldn’t even tremble. Tony heard it in her voice over the call, the strength and leadership that never truly stops lacing her tone because it’s such a big part of her, the instinct of being a protector too great to be suffocated, even by her fear.

Tony has no doubts she was scared.

Who wouldn’t be?

(He can only imagine how loud it was, down here.)

(Cars, buildings, glass and screams.)

(It must’ve sounded like hell.)

(Tony’s hell had been quiet.)

(Too quiet.)

She had been scared.

But when Tony didn’t come back, and Happy was gone, and the world held still and stopped breathing, terrified and hopeless — That’s always the moment when Pepper raises her chin up high and squares her shoulders and takes hell by its reigns and beats it into order. It’s what she does. Pepper is the neat, strong hand that guides people to the quickest way to safety, because her mind has the sharpness for business but her heart has the compassion many in her position lack, and it shows, because if the world is tilting out of its axis, Pepper is never afraid to be the one to step closer and hold it together for as long as she can.

Even… Even if it won’t be enough this time.

Tony knew she held her own during the past days. He doesn’t underestimate Pepper Potts.

But he left her alone to deal with it anyway. And even if he had no other choice, he feels like the absolute worst for making her believe he’d also left alone to deal with this.

They argue about this all the time, and Tony should know better, by now he should know better, but he couldn’t – he wasn’t going to ignore the huge alien spaceship, much less after Bruce’s warning. Tony had been—

He had been waiting for this. He knew this would happen someday, even if no one would believe him. He’d always known.

Pepper hates it, and he knows that. They used to fight so much over it. Tony tried to stop it, to make her happy, and he thought – He thought he had been doing well, he believed that he had finally found the balance she needed after so many years of trying and failing to find a middle-ground, but then the giant fucking spaceship came, as he always feared it would.

And he left her here. Alone. Thinking he was dead.

“I’m sorry.” He mutters, and closes his mouth sharply before he can say anything else.

He knows how this goes. They’ve done this far too many times. He knows words are of little use right now.

Whatever else he has to say, it won’t make this any better.

Pepper knows it too. She doesn’t prod, she doesn’t scream, she doesn’t argue – she does, however, let out a sigh of relief when the elevator reaches the main floor and the doors open to reveal the Compound, as quiet and neat as it was before, before all of this, and the normalcy of it is so welcome to her that Tony can feel it beneath his hands, the way she releases the tension in her shoulders like a steel cable finally being relieved of weight.  

(Funny.)

Tony had had the complete opposite reaction.

The questions come up all the way to his throat again, squeezing his airways, flooding his mouth like alcohol bubbling up his stomach, but they never truly leave his lips.

(But how horrible it must be—)

(Outside—)

Because how else would she react so strongly to an empty building? How is this something she now associates with safety, when Tony can only take in the bare walls and the echoes of his steps and think of loss?

Pepper starts into a quick walk inside, and the only that stops her is the fact that Tony is half-attached to her and so, so distracted that when she walks, she pulls him awkwardly and the movement stings all the way across Tony’s abdomen, and he hisses before he can stop himself, and Nebula jolts in alert behind him at the pained sound.

She makes an aborted gesture towards Tony, nearly swatting Pepper’s hands away, but the quick turn Pepper makes back and the “Tony, are you okay?” she exclaims is fast enough that it halts Nebula in her defensive movement, waiting patiently for Pepper’s next move.

Pepper’s next move is to pull Tony forward, slowly this time, and impatiently push him in the direction of the sofas.

“It’s fine, it just stings a little. No big deal.” Tony assures her, and is properly ignored.

“You need to sit down.”

“I’m fine. No need to fuss, she’s done more than enough of that already.” Tony informs her in a placating tone, pointing at Nebula with a gesture of his head as casually as he can, reminding Pepper they are not alone.

Pepper makes a sound of surprise, a quiet, distracted exhale, and as Tony lowers himself on the couch again as she prompted, Pepper turns slightly in Nebula’s direction, still not fully stepping away from Tony.

Nebula’s expression is conflicted. Her breathing comes out a little hard through her nostrils, mouth tight, and she looks at Pepper with distrust and caution, not daring to avert her gaze to check on Tony, but Tony can tell for her posture that’s what she wants to do.

“Hey, Smurfette.” Tony calls, and it only goes to show how truly focused on him she is, because her eyes snap back to his with no question, not even a slight wavering of her guarded posture even with the use of the nickname. A warm surge of something that is far too close to affection crashes in tidal waves in his chest, and it leaks into his voice, curling malleable around his words. “It’s okay. We’re safe. There’s no threat.”

Nebula’s eyes gleam in recognition of the phrase, and with very deliberate movements, she removes herself from her tense stance and relaxes her shoulders.

Pepper leaves out a breath of relief, so low only Tony can hear it.

“I’m sorry.” Pepper says to Nebula, regretful. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You don’t scare me.” Nebula quips back, because that’s how she is, and Tony really isn’t surprised.

Despite the slight acidity in Nebula’s tone, Pepper does not step back, and Tony knows Nebula registers this as something noteworthy, because her eyes, even if they are pitch-black and guarded, twitch with stunned curiosity.

“I just—” Pepper starts, but then looks like decides against whatever she was going to say. “You said you helped Tony get back here?”

Nebula actually hasn’t said anything of substance to Pepper yet, but Nebula gives her a nod, in silent confirmation.

“Thank you.” Pepper breathes, shakily, and indecisively looks between them both, as if not knowing who to look. “I didn’t know what happened, or where you were, and I was so worried. Thank you.”

“He powered the ship so we could fly.” Nebula tells her, awkwardly, and Tony can tell how uncomfortable she is with Pepper’s open gratitude. When Pepper’s eyes come back to him, Nebula visibly relaxes, and Tony would feel bad about the idea of how foreign sincere gratitude is to Nebula if he didn’t know exactly what that felt like himself.

Pepper’s eyes are full of questions, but then, her eyes drop to the blue glow of the Reactor in Tony’s chest, and understanding passes in a flash through her eyes before it morphs into concern. “With that?”

“I’m fine.” Tony assures her again. He taps at the compartment twice, two quick beats of his fingers, and the only sound it makes is the dull impact of his digits on the casing. It doesn’t click anymore. “See? All set and good.”

Thanks to Nebula, he doesn’t say. He won’t throw the attention back at her like a hot potato – or a bomb, because apparently that’s how strongly Nebula feels about it. He knows she wouldn’t appreciate it.

Pepper looks like she’s having a real hard time with – with everything. With grasping what they’re saying, with organizing her thoughts and voicing her questions, looking so tired Tony can’t help but reach for her hand, toying with her fingers and grazing the engagement ring. He looks up at her, and the way his heart stutters is just as powerful as it was years ago, and he wonders, when she looks back, if his eyes feel as unguarded and fond as he feels inside, if she can see the depth of his guilt, of his sorrow, if his body is even capable of translating in expression the nameless pit of sensation that storms within.

She sees something. But again, of course she does.

Her body turns back to him slowly, her eyes careful and apprehensive, and when she speaks, her voice is no more than a whisper:

“Where were you?”

“Space.” Tony says, and it’s a shitty answer, but he doesn’t think the more accurate one would make any difference. “I was – I was trying to keep the aliens from grabbing what they wanted.”

“And what did they want?” Pepper asks, winded. “God, Tony, do you know what happened out there? Have you seen—?”

“I have.” Tony interrupts, because he really doesn’t want to hear it, even if he’s aware that what he’s seen does not compare to two entire days living in this post-apocalyptic hell.

“No one knew what was going on.” Pepper tells him, the recollection painful, a deep, heavy sorrow thick as syrup in her voice. “It was all fine, and then people started to—“

She stops and blinks repeatedly, as if she’s holding back tears, and Tony runs the pad of his thumb over her wrist, caressing the blue veins on her pulse, and Pepper shudders as she takes in a deep breath, letting the air flow into her lungs, closing her eyes for just a second to reign her emotions back in and calm down.

Tony freezes, and, irrationally, almost asks her to stop.

(Stop.)

(The air—)

(Stop.)

But he isn’t quick enough.

“Who did this?” She demands the answer, even if her voice is soft.

(She needs to hear it. To make it real.)

Tony wishes he could keep her from this. That he could erase this from her mind and keep her safe from this tragedy, but he can’t.

He’d tried. He never succeeded.

“A guy named Thanos.” Tony says, darkly. “He had a gauntlet, something I had never seen before. It held these – These stones, and Strange had one and we had to keep him from getting it.”

And I failed, it goes unsaid.

“But he—” Tony chokes on air, and he coughs a little, trying uselessly to get rid of the oddly tight feeling in his throat. “He needed six and he already had four. It was too late.”

Self-conscious, feeling the pinprick stinging of shame burning hot on his neck, Tony looks over Pepper to look for Nebula, only to see her gone and, after a quick sweep over the room with wide eyes, nowhere to be found.

He would panic, but he doesn’t think he needs to, not with Nebula. And also, Tony thinks she probably meant to give them some privacy, which Tony deeply appreciates.

He’ll ask Nebula where she ran off to later. She’s probably listening in anyway, from the way she’s so wary of everyone. Tony doesn’t really care right now.

He can’t muster the strength to be concerned about something so unthreatening as Nebula. The only thing filling his thoughts is Pepper’s warmth – and beneath it, the looming memory of a fist, of six bright stones, and an enemy far too powerful for him to beat.

“What did he do, Tony?” Pepper asks, and the idea of saying it out loud again stings in him like a physical blow, drilling painfully into his temples, making him close his eyes and his face twist in a grimace.

He pulls Pepper a little closer just as she takes a step forward of her own, and holds her by the waist and lays his head on her stomach, his grimy forehead against her rumpled white shirt, that’s already ruined by soot and dirt, and he sighs deep and heavy as the warmth of her radiates into his skin gentle and comforting, while the entire world around him feels so cold.

“You’re burning up.” She tells him, but her tone is surprisingly unhurried. She sounds exhausted. She sounds… defeated. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and leans forward, hugging him, bringing him closer even if that means she’s squishing his face into her stomach, and Tony doesn’t want to back up, not even to breathe, because he doesn’t want to breathe, he doesn’t want to do anything besides have Pepper in his arms and pretend the world isn’t collapsing all around him.

How many times have they done this? How many times, since the first time Tony could find the strength to utter the words and admit there was something wrong with him, with his head, and he couldn’t find a way to let it go or let it out? Not unless he was creating more, arming himself more, nearly to the teeth?

It’s been over five years.

Fuck, it’s been so long.

So long Tony has been haunted by this, by the idea that something out there was coming to get them, descending from space to kill them all, and every single day had been a struggle to get over his panic attacks and his paranoia, to try to be better, to forget, to make himself believe he was wrong

Only to be proved he was not.

Tony has never wanted to be wrong more in his entire life. Never.

“I lost Spiderman.” Tony croaks in a miserable voice, forcing his eyes to stay open as he says, because the memories will flicker behind his eyelids otherwise.

And Pepper knows. Pepper hears what he’s truly saying, because she knows, and she knows how fucking heavy these words feel in Tony’s lips, in his beaten-up heart, and she knows what he means.

Or he thinks she does. In part. Maybe fully. Tony isn’t sure. She teased him about it once, just once, but it was a joke.

But still – Pepper knows him like no one else does.

Tony had—

Fuck—

Tony had mentioned he wanted children to her. Or he heavily implied. Or he desperately hoped.

The correlation is so obvious. The source. It doesn’t matter if Pepper hadn’t seen much of Peter beside an introduction and hearing Tony talk about him like a proud old man, but it’s impossible not to meet Peter, not to hear Tony talk about him and make the connection.

“Oh, Tony.” Pepper shakes around him, shivering. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“He took half of everything.” Tony mutters, hauntingly, needing desperately to put it all out before all the words got caught in his throat and choked him. “Plants, animals, people. Half of it, everything.”

“Everything?” Pepper blinks rapidly, confused. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

That’s apparently not enough.

“People are dying, Tony.” Pepper says, as if Tony doesn’t know, as if he hasn’t seen it for himself. Her hands find his hair and squeeze, not too gently, forcing his head back so she can look at him, her eyes frantic with worry. “Almost the entire state has no energy anymore. Soon water stations will stop too, if they haven’t already. People are gathering in hospitals because some of them still have light, but—”

Tony’s breath hiccups for a second.

Oh. Power cuts. No electricity. Severed connections.

No access to water.

(Hoarding of food.)

(Blocked roads. Destroyed buildings. Accidents.)

(Ashes.)

He – He hadn’t thought about that. The Compound is self-sustained. The tech Tony implemented on the project was even better than the Tower’s, created to last for over five years. But outside—

“There are so many people hurt.” Pepper keeps talking, completely unaware that Tony’s brain tuned her completely off for a moment. “Car crashes, accidents. Someone said a plane landed in the middle of the buildings not far from where I was.”

Pepper shakes her head, uselessly trying to dispel dark thoughts.

“We didn’t know if it was going to happen again.” She confesses, tense. “No one knows what happened. We didn’t know what caused this, and everyone was afraid it would keep happening until we were all gone—”

Shit.

Tony has the horrible realization that she is right. No one down here knew what was going on. When people started to turn into dust, no one knew the cause or the pattern, or how it worked, so they had no way of knowing if it would keep happening. Pepper looks like she hasn’t slept in days and she probably hasn’t, afraid something would happen as she did, that she would be gone even before she realized it.

Tony grabs her thighs, because that’s the first thing he can grip from his lowered position, and he feels like a beggar kneeling at her feet, pleading for mercy, but instead of asking for relief, Tony breeds chaos and hurt, like a monster; Because what passes his lips, instead of an apology or an assurance, is this:

“It’s worse than you can imagine.”

Pepper looks back at him with horror, mouth gaping in shock, and Tony asks her wryly, wishing he could shut up and stop this, but it’s too late. It happened.

“When was the last time you’ve seen the sun?” He asks, somberly.

Pepper’s head immediately turns to the side, towards the glass wall, and she stares at the heavy clouds and the gloomy day with a frown so deep that it looks like it hurts. “What do you mean, it’s day—”

“The sun.” Tony presses. “When did you last see the sun?”

Pepper’s eyes go unfocused, lost deep inside her memories, and Tony knows the question is probably much harder to answer than it should be, that she’s probably completely out of touch with time, that the hours blurred together so messily in her panic and anxiety that the past, the present and the future are no more than muddy water, than grime and mud, a mess that’s almost impossible to clean and make clear again.

“Days ago.” She finally breathes, with only the slightest hint of doubt in her voice. “The day the spaceship came. It’s been like this since then.”

Gray and closed, so heavy the air feels solid, and—

(Cold, cold, cold.)

Tony gulps around nothing, digging his teeth into his bottom lip so strongly he nearly busts it open, before releasing it roughly and groaning:

“It’s the dust, Pepper.” Tony says. “The ashes. They’re blocking the sun.”

Pepper gives him a look, as if she doesn’t understand. But she does. Tony can see it in her eyes.

They go wider and wider, her frown deepening and her mouth gaping, emitting no sound. It’s that delay. It’s that unconscious refusal to admit, to connect the dots and allow the realization to sink in totally, trying to stave off the inevitable.

It won’t work.

It never does.

“The air is full of them. We’re breathing it. It’s— It’s blocking sunlight.”

“Oh my God.” Pepper gasps, putting a hand on her mouth, her face going impossibly paler. “Tony, you can’t be— Oh God!

“It’s over three hundred tons of chemical compound in the atmosphere in less than twenty-four hours.” Tony explains, knowing that Pepper will follow along, all of her familiarity with the environment-friendly policy of SI being twisted into something horrifying right before her eyes. “Not counting plants, animals, and the crap that got loose in accidents. Smoke, fire—” He waves his hands dismissively, although the weight on his shoulders is anything but irrelevant.

And because that weight is so heavy, like he is holding the entire universe at his very back, like the dawn of the realization is a physical thing on his spine, Tony mutters, flatly:

“We’re going extinct.”

Because it’s true. If he doesn’t find a way to stop this, that’s where they’re headed. Complete annihilation.

Pepper walks backward until she’s out of his reach, shaking her head helplessly, and Tony watches miserably as the full extent of the damage fully registers into her, and she puts her back to him and walks to the counter of the bar, pacing, hiding her face from Tony very much on purpose, distressed. She lays her hands on the counter, her shoulders hunched, and breathes and breathes, and Tony can see how it doesn’t help, because every single one is a bitter reminder and a terrible curse.

The silence stretches between them, painful.

Tony doesn’t break it no matter how hard he wants to, because he doesn’t know what to say. He wats to get up and hug her, but it wouldn’t do any good.

All he can do is wait and watch, which is the most painfully ironic thing that could happen right now.  

“There must be something we can do.” Pepper says, injecting strength into her voice, the words gaining weight and sturdiness upon her, even as they strain her throat, even as they drag themselves heavy out her mouth. “There has to be.”

She turns suddenly, her eyes bright and determined, even when clouded with sadness, and she stares at Tony, giving him no way of opposing to her.  He does give her the tiniest of nods, the movement jerky and unsure, but the small yeah he utters in reply losing itself in the air, too soft to be heard.

Because it’s a given. Of course there has to be a way. If there isn’t, Tony will create one. He won’t allow the purple bastard to get away with this, he won’t, because Tony has already saved the world once and he’ll do it again, no matter how many times he must.

Tony will carry the entire damned burned by himself if he has to, if that means that no one else suffers the consequences anymore.

He doesn’t know yet how can he possibly fix this, but he’ll think of something. He always does.

Fear and anger where always Tony’s greatest motivators.

“What about Jim?” Pepper asks suddenly, surprising him. “And Bruce, do you know what happened to them? And what about that – that man at the park? The one with the portals? Can’t he help?”

And Tony lets out a small sight and says, “Rhodey’s fine.”, and Pepper also breathes a softer sound, her shoulders easing just a little bit, a small dose of relief easing into her body. “He’s on his way. Bruce’s with him.”

Pepper makes a pause. “And the other guy? From the park?”

Tony shakes his head sorrowfully.

(What about the others?)

Tony stops.

The others—

Pepper nods minutely, subdued, and starts walking closer again, her steps silent and soft on the cold floor; Tony jerks out of his rapidly darkening thoughts when she’s back in his personal space, close enough to touch, her hands closed into anxious fists and her fingers twisting and rubbing uncomfortably, but her eyes so, so determined and clear.

“We can fix this, Tony. We’ll think of something.” She says, and it’s a comfort as much as it is a prophecy with no chance of failure. “There has to be a way.”

“Has to be.” Tony agrees.

It’s true.

It has to be.

Because they have no other choice.

Tony will have to fix this. There is no alternative. There is nothing else that matters. It’s either fix it, or die trying.

Because the only other option is to wait and die anyway.

He refuses to do that second one.

(There’s the mission—)

(and nothing else.)

His hands squeeze Pepper’s waist, his thumbs sweeping soft caresses on her ribs through her shirt, feeling the way her chest expands and eases softly with her breath, the life in her he’s still lucky to have. He closes his eyes and he pretends, just a little, just a small, stolen moment of fabricated peace, that he will get to keep this. He breathes in deep, wishing she still smelled like her favorite perfume and not like smoke and anxiety, and pretends the world outside is bright in sunlight and warm like the summer. His head twitches and he resists the urge to nuzzle at her belly, knowing that the touch would give away too much, would open a fucking Pandora’s box of thoughts he’s not willing to fight through now.

He does this because he knows there’s a chance he won’t have it later.

A huge chance. A practically unavoidable chance.

And Tony won’t be able to stop it. Not any more than he was every single time before this.

He knows this dance like the back of his hand. He’ll try – He’ll try his damn hardest not to let it escape his control, he’ll bend himself into the impossible, he’ll do everything he can to keep Pepper alive and safe.

But sometimes, that means something horrible. It means to lose her.

It has happened, over and over, so many times before. Tony can practically write a manual on it now. How to continuously disappoint the love of your life, even when you know exactly what you’re doing wrong; Long title, maybe it wouldn’t be very marketable – but it would be completely accurate.

Not this time. Tony will try to stop it this time. He’ll rack his brain out, he’ll try, because that’s all he can do, with odds like these.

And yet, he hugs her, savors, and pretends.

Uselessly wishing that this old dance, somehow, ended differently this time.

 

Tony thinks he loses time.

He’ll only realize this later; Much, much later, because when it happens, he’s too out of it to notice. He’s still in Pepper’s arms, as if no more than mere seconds have passed, but suddenly, a voice comes from above, urgent and loud, and it snaps Tony’s eyes wide open like waking him brutally from a deep slumber, and he jolts so bad his ass completely leaves the cushion, and in consequence, he nearly knocks Pepper over in his haste.

“Boss.” FRIDAY calls, urgently. “I’ve detected an aircraft nearing the grounds. It is approaching at high speed, and it seems directed to the building.”

“Rhodey.” Tony whispers, and gets up slowly, reminding himself he has to move slowly because his wound is starting to throb from all the careless movements he’s been making when he still should be in bed rest.

“Is that your team?” Nebula asks, mutedly, and Tony whips around fast, completely ignoring his own warnings; And now, instead of hurting on his side, he hurts on his neck, when a muscle pulls too tight and stings all the way up to his brain.

Oh, that’s gonna hurt like a bitch when he finally lays down to sleep somewhere. He can already imagine the pain flaring stiff on his muscles when he wakes up.

Tony hadn’t even heard her come back. How long has she been here? And where did she came from? He doesn’t even know where she went while she was away.

Not like it matters right now, but Tony is curious. And to be very honest, Tony is kind of concerned for Nebula.

They haven’t really talked. Much. Or in any situation where they’re not both half mad with anxiety and pressure. And there Tony was, soaking into the comfort of his fiancé and patiently waiting for his best friend to arrive, while Nebula had been standing nearby watching, alone.

Tony wonders if Gamora was all she had.

Tony wonders if Nebula would hug her, even if she seems less than amenable to something so emotional as a hug.

Not because Nebula has no feelings, because Tony knows that is not true – and he has known it for quite a while now, ever since the Benatar, the salty chips, and a steady arm around his back –, but because Nebula likes to pretend she’s all metal and strength, no cracks, no wounds, no soft spots, when she’s really not.

Tony wishes he could be the type of person that can offer her that comfort, but he really doesn’t know how.

If he tries to hug her Nebula will probably try to cut off his arms.

(Better not to push.)

Is that your team?, she asked.

He doesn’t know.

It’s Rhodey. Rhodey is coming. Rhodey is, without any doubt, his team.

But the others—

He doesn’t even know if the others are here too. Rhodey never told him, and Tony never asked, like the damned coward he is. He was trying his hardest not to think about it until it was absolutely necessary, to be honest – and the not knowing is awful, and he regrets deeply that he didn’t steel himself enough for the very real possibility that they might be arriving with Rhodey, and Tony will have to deal with them despite being totally unprepared for it.

Great.

His team. Ex-team.

Who knows what the hell they are.

Tony realizes he can’t find in himself the strength to answer Nebula’s question, whatever answer that would be, mind going too fast to process words – so he doesn’t. He simply stands there for a second, barely hesitating, before grabbing Pepper by the hand and making a gesture towards the side at Nebula, and says:

“C’mon.” He calls to them both, and walks back to the elevator, heading to the landing pad once again, unwilling to stay seated wallowing in misery for one second longer.

Outside, the day is turning into night.

He has no idea what time it is. When the world is too dark, any ray of light that goes out feels like the entire sun – and when it’s too cold, it could be midday and it would still feel like the deepest hours of the night. The coldest nights in Tony’s life were the nights in Afghanistan, the desert empty and vast, bathed in darkness, the humid walls of the cave so chilly and the dirt and sand beneath his feet so solid and unforgiving it could almost pass off as concrete instead. Tony had been attached to a damned car battery and he had never felt so cold. The waterboarding had made everything even worse, because they left him soaking wet after, hair, skin, and clothes, and it’s a wonder Tony didn’t die of hypothermia even with the small fire they had to keep themselves warm.

This night is quickly becoming just as cold. It’s a terrifying thought.

It’s probably not the time it should be getting darker. Tony honestly can’t tell. The clouds closer to the horizon are turning almost black as the sky goes dark, the dim light that weakly illuminated the world fading as if slowly being hidden behind heavy curtains, a slow descent into oppressing shade, and there they stand, in the open, exposed, being swallowed by ice and ash.

Tony looks up, to the horizon, and there it is.

The Quinjet.

There it is.

Tony hadn’t realized how long it has been since he last saw it until now. It’s not like he needed it, personally. The armor can take him anywhere he wanted to go, the same thing for Rhodey, and Vision could just fly. Pete never went anywhere beyond the borders of the state – not unless he was sneaking out during school trips –, so what use would Tony have for a jet?

Pepper uses the private plane.

Maria Hill might’ve liked to have it around, for security and practicality purposes, maybe – but Maria Hill left to find Fury, and Tony hadn’t protested against it, and that was it.

Seeing the Quinjet now stirs something odd inside Tony’s chest, even past the dread, even past the anxiety; something a little tender, a little sad, something he’ll push down, far, far away, and never allow himself to think ever again.

The armor is no longer on the landing pad so when the Quinjet finally reaches the building and hovers above the platform, it drifts lower and lower smoothly, not a single waver in its balance or trajectory, so elegant it’s nearly a mockery – but the swirl of the wind and the dust are hitting his skin like lashes of a whip, violent and cold, blowing the dirt directly into his dry, tired eyes. Tony squints miserably and turns his head, hissing, even if his eyes keep trying to snap back, keep trying to follow the movement until the Quinjet has landed, until he sees Rhodey coming outside. He insanely wants to step closer, because even the necessary wait for the jet to lad feels like too much, like a purposeful taunt, but he can’t, and so he refuses to avert his gaze before he can see his best friend right in front of him, alive.

And it’s loud.

The sound of the turbines has never felt so loud.

Has it always been like this? Tony had made so many adjustments to it when Fury had asked for some help with the designs. Did he really make them so loud?

(No.)

(The world is just too quiet.)

The jet touches the ground and stops with only the slightest bounce, the wheels sturdy and reliable, and although the ground does not move at all under its weight, irrationally, Tony feels its pressure, in his gut, like having it here its so real and so tangible that it somehow turns itself into sensation, into solid, and it lays heavily right atop of his stomach, dragging it down low almost to his feet.

The ramp starts to open with a loud gush of air, all the heavy locks disarming in perfect synchrony, and every inch it lowers, the tighter Tony’s body feels.

Tony!” Rhodey’s voice – Rhodey’s voice – calls loudly from the open ramp, from the darkness inside the jet, and Tony watches, transfixed, with his heart stuck in his throat, as the doors open wider and wider, until the weak daylight seeps enough into the inside of the jet that he can see a figure standing there, shoulders wide and tense,

Rhodey.

And it’s completely involuntary, a reflex so instinctive it’s nearly primal, but the feeling that comes over him, immediately, is a pure, unshakable, completely raw feeling of—

Safe.

(I’m safe.)

Tony sees, through hazy eyes and with gasping breaths, that Rhodey is stepping off the jet and running in his direction, and Tony wants to run towards him too, but his legs feel stuck, like he has no joints, a mannequin about to dismantle itself on the floor, his thighs and calves so tense and stiff he might give himself a cramp even if he’s just standing there.

But it can’t be. It can’t be, because Tony hears the roaring, desperate cry of “Rhodes!” that echoes through the air and it sounds like him, it is him, so Tony is not shutting down. Not yet.

He still can’t move.

Tony is—

The last time Rhodey ran towards him like that, Tony had been on his knees in the sand, chest open and body exhausted and dehydrated, a hand raised into the air, and a laugh escaping his lips like pieces of glass stuck in his teeth, cracked and broken and bleeding and sharp.

He had breathed deep in relief and it hurt, he had dropped to his knees and it hurt, he had laughed, and it hurt.

And now it does too.

Tony can see the yellow at the periphery of his vision, suddenly and not at all, the rough feeling of sand scratching between his fingers and under his nails, and he swears he can feel the sun scorching on his skin, but that’s not right.

This isn’t Afghanistan; but the déjà vu is so strong that it locks him still, and Tony can only watch.

Rhodey runs, and Tony feels overwhelmed, feels himself shaking with the explosive mix of feelings over seeing him alive, seeing him standing, being alive to see him; And the nauseating feeling of reliving again, in less than three days, so many details about his captivity, about his beginning, so disturbingly similar to his ending.

“You son of a bitch.” Rhodey growls when he gets close, and closer, and closer, and without slowing down his momentum, he crashes into Tony and brings him in for a hug, tight and strong, his hands warm and rough and secure at Tony’s back, capable of protecting him from anything. “I knew you weren’t dead.”

He says it in that tone – That tone that is not a lie, but the desperate desire to make something true, the tone all hopeless people use when they cling to an impossibility and refuse to accept any other option.

And Tony hugs him back fiercely, slotting his chin at the slope of Rhodey’s shoulder, uncaring if his unkempt goatee will scrape his neck or face, and sighs in relief.

His Rhodey.

His Rhodey is alive.

“If you do this again—” Rhodey keeps saying, sounding distraughtly angry, and if Tony didn’t know better, he’d think he’s about to get his ass kicked. “If you do this again, I swear I’m going to follow you into whatever hole you get yourself into and I’m going to kill you myself, you understand?”

Tony, against all odds, lets out a laugh, breathy and startled, sounding almost like a bark, and even if his heart squeezes with somber emotions, his eyes flicker with mirth.

“Good to see you, brother.” Tony says, because he’s an asshole, and he knows Rhodey feels the words deep down into his bones, because Tony feels the way his shoulders and back twitch with a sharp inhale.

“Don’t try me, Tony.” Rhodey threatens, not meaning it even a little bit, and Tony can’t do anything but smile against his skin. “You know I’ll do it.”

“Yeah, I know you would.”

Rhodey huffs out harshly, only a suggestion of a laugh, and squeezes him tighter.

“You can’t do that to me, man.” Rhodey mumbles, voice dripping with emotion, and Tony feels it in his heart with a pang of affection so deep and unconditional it hurts, and he chuckles wetly – but makes no promises.

He doesn’t really feel like lying right now.

Over Rhodey’s shoulder, Tony sees Bruce – Bruce! – staggering down the ramp in quick steps, arms flailing to keep himself upright with his hasty rhythm, eyes flicking between his own feet and Tony in Rhodey’s arms, and Tony thinks he’ll end up falling over in his clumsy trajectory if he’s not careful.

When he catches sight of Nebula, Tony can clearly see the way his steps falter and he mutters something to himself, eyes widening, and he visibly reconsiders continuing to move closer, as if he’s afraid Nebula will pounce him if he does.

But he doesn’t stop. Whatever it is about Nebula that made him hesitate – and it could be a whole lot –, Bruce shrugs it off almost immediately and keeps walking, stepping heavily on the ground when he gets out, as if he can finally trust what’s beneath him with his weight, and he all but jogs in Tony’s direction just as Rhodey did, hard, deep lines of worry etched on his face, jittery anxiety so clear it ages him years and years with just the creases on his forehead.

Tony is about to reach a hand out for him, when Rhodey steps back and moves to Pepper, giving her a hug just as tight as the one he gave Tony, when a movement behind Bruce catches his eye and Tony suddenly goes very, very still.

 

(They’re here.)

 

 

They’re here.

 

 

Tony is not ready to do this.

Not at all. Not even a little bit.

He’s not ready. He never will be.

It’s been years. Years. It’s been so long.

Tony has—

Tony has imagined how this moment would go. Over and over and over again. He tried not to, but he did – and right now, despite how they made rounds incessantly inside his brain in those nights went the memories became just a little too much, when he looked over his shoulder expecting to see a person standing there and found only emptiness, every single one of those fantasies are scattered and scratchy, itching at the corners of his mind with uncomfortable static, a radio transmission too broken to rely any information across. Even if he tries to grasp it, they just melt between his fingertips, slippery and untrustworthy, running away from him. He can’t comprehend anything but the feelings they stir on him, the irrational, profound, knee-jerking reaction, all those feelings that make him feel like he’s about to expel everything he has inside him even if he hasn’t eaten in days.

It makes him sick. It makes him tense.

(It makes him scared.)

He’s not… He’s not ready to deal with this now.

He has imagined it soft and kind. He has imagined it hard and angry and bitter. He has imagined it mute, and he has imagined it loud and roaring, and relieved, and resentful, and grateful and tired and desperate – and all possibilities in between, and none of them had ever felt right. He’s not sure what he had wanted to feel. He had wanted to feel different things at different times. Or maybe… Maybe, a small part of him, had wanted it to never happen at all.

It might be easier. Maybe.

Easier to push it all away.

He has thought about it a lot. For a very long time. But to this day, Tony still doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, if he was ever presented with the necessity to reconnect with his… ex-teammates – Christ, that sounds so stupid –, if the day when they would all be brought together in desperation ever arrived.

Now it was. Now, that day is here.

And he still doesn’t know what to do.

Tony sees them, almost as if he’s watching this all from a television, like an out-of-body experience, as his body locks up and the breath that leaves him sounds like his soul letting out an anguished sound, confused and lost, merely a feeling, with no sound. It’s shocking how his nerves can be so itchy and tender but his body so numb, how can relief and dread entwine together like two threads that look exactly alike, and he can’t tell which one is which, or where one ends and the other begins. Maybe they’re not separate at all. Maybe it is just one long, inescapable wave of indivisible emotions, a giant dam of it overflowing after too much pressure applied from the other side, a cage being burst open when the beast inside of it decides it will no longer be kept in shackles.

Tony has always been very good at suppressing things. It is a skill to have, for someone who was led a life like his.

Compartmentalize. Detach.

To take something painful and twist it into so many directions he can’t recognize it anymore. Until he can use it as fuel, and not as a chain.

Tony is good at that.

(Just not good enough.)

(Not every single time.)

 

He sees Natasha first.

She’s right at the front, her posture fragile as Tony has never seen before, shoulders hitched up and face open in unguarded anxiety, and it’s so easy for Tony’s heart just to squeeze tight with a wave of complicated feelings, a rush of warmth mixing in with wariness, the lines between all the different personas Natasha has presented to him since they first met blurring together like words smudging in ink across a page.

She’s blonde. He doesn’t know why that fact registers in his mind as something notable, but it does.

Maybe that’s just his mind being nitpicky. Trying to find reasons to make itself believe he is, in fact, just imagining this is happening.

Tony looks at her and she looks back, and for a moment – a wild, incomprehensible moment –, Tony damn nearly thinks he is actually hallucinating this. Because what he’s seeing feels weird. He feels weird. This was never supposed to happen, Tony has never seen Natasha look as disheveled or as concerned as she looks right now, and he can’t help but wonder if he has finally lost his mind and he just hasn’t figured it out yet.

(It would explain the blue lady, that’s for sure.)

But he knows it’s not. Deep down, he knows it’s not.

He knows this is real.

That woman up there, staring at him, pale as a freaking ghost—

That’s Natasha Romanov.

After the world finally drained out all the strength it possibly could from her.

“Tony?” Rhodey calls, softly, and Tony blinks drowsily as he steps back and stares at his best friend, his eyesight blurry and unfocused like a bad camera lens, and the look of concern in Rhodey’s face is so compassionate and familiar that it aches in Tony’s chest, the sort of comfort only Rhodey could ever give him, in the right measure, at the right time.

He knows that Tony is staring over his shoulder. He hasn’t turned back, but he can see it in Tony’s face.

Rhodey’s hands find his arms, closing in around his biceps with all that military strength, secure and warm and protective, and his grip says everything Rhodey never had much ability to put into proper words.

Don’t worry, it says. I got you.

Tony isn’t sure what he should do.

He isn’t sure what he wants to do either.

He can’t move, exactly. He tries to, he tries to talk or to do something, anything, like taking a step back or raising a hand or even blinking, but it’s like his brain isn’t sending down the right commands to his limbs because every single motion Tony makes, no matter how small, feels like it’s in slow motion. Like moving through molasses. He and Natasha stare at each other, both of them looking like deer in the headlights, and Tony can’t do anything but to wait, to stay so still he looks like a statue in the middle of the damned roof.

The last time he saw her, Natasha snarled in his face.

She called him egotistic. She walked away from him.

(She switched sides.)

(Again.)

Tony hadn’t been surprised. Hurt? Maybe. Maybe. It’s not like… Everything had been going so shitty already, so yeah, it sucked when she disappeared, and it shouldn’t have mattered, not when he had already known it would happen. It’s just how she is, isn’t it? It’s fine. It’s fine. And Tony had deserved it, her anger. He taunted her. He pushed when he shouldn’t have.

He’d known. He won’t pretend otherwise.

Tony had known. She’s a spy, she’s very… She always will find a way out. The Accords were going to push her into an uncomfortable situation, and she weaseled out before things got ugly. Tony wishes he could have done that, really.

So he understands. He does. He’s not angry about it, not anymore. Not like he was, years ago.

But—

The part of him that’s… guarded, the voice that has been carved into him since he was young, this thing that grew with him and warns him at every second of the day that he should keep them all at bay, never let them get too close – this voice, from beyond the haze of Tony’s nebulous feelings, can still find the strength to tell him that maybe, if he is smart, he’ll have learned not to let this one get too close either.

However, Natasha steals the options out of his hands, and decides the next move for herself.

She blinks once and it’s like she’s suddenly awake, and strides towards him with a purpose, completely ignoring how stiff and tense he gets at every meter she gets closer, her objective the only thing in her mind even though Tony has no idea what that objective is yet. Even if her weapons aren’t drawn, Tony feels the almost overwhelming urge to protect himself, to step away or to cross his arms over his chest in a fighting stance, or to tap twice in his Reactor and suit himself up just in case—

Natasha by-passes Rhodey with no finesse or politeness, nearly knocking her shoulder against him in her haste, and she all but pulls Tony into her arms, and Tony only has the time to let out a shocked gasp before he realizes she is hugging him, hard, with the same fierceness she uses to fight, and Tony lets out an undignified sound of exertion when he practically forces all the air out of his lungs with how tightly she squeezes his ribs.

“Careful, I’m injured here—” Tony says before he can properly think about what is exactly coming out of his mouth.

“You’ll live.” Natasha snaps back, and it’s not just a rebuttal – it’s a demand, far too forceful and unyielding to sound like the joke that, in another lifetime, it would have been.

“Not if you squeeze me until my stitches pop open, I won’t.” Tony thoughtlessly replies, the banter so natural that it flows out of him without any second thoughts.

His hands hover on Natasha’s waist, unsure if they should touch or not, if he should give in to the unexpected affection – although it does feel more like a brawl than a hug for Tony’s poor tired bones –, because he doesn’t know what it would mean if he hugged her back.

Tony doesn’t hate her.

He really doesn’t. But he – he doesn’t trust her either. Not anymore.

Still, he misses her. God, he misses her, and isn’t that the most ridiculous thing ever?

Natasha had weaseled her way into his life so long ago that Tony had been used to have her here, to have her back and trust her with his' too, to trust her to be clever and sharp and damn sneaky, even knowing that could – would – bite him in the ass someday. Tony’s playboy days had been long gone when he first met her, but that wasn’t the point, was it? Is just that she was good. She was everything Tony liked to have around, but he shouldn’t, but Tony had never been really good at keeping danger at a safe distance.

Natasha had always, always been dangerous to have around. For the very same reasons Tony loved to have her around.

He had never wanted her as a lover, not really. Tony is reckless, but Tony isn’t stupid. She isn’t attracted to him like that, and even if she is very beautiful, that wasn’t why Tony liked her. But she was bold. She called out his bullshit, she was independent and dangerous, she was wary and carefully closed-off, and Tony had felt all of that so deeply, had felt it resonate so loudly into his own soul, made him want to reach out, and he dared to think of her as family.

It hurts to remind himself now that maybe he shouldn’t.

Because he doesn’t really know if he knows Natasha anymore.

If he ever did in the first place.

(But—)

“I’m glad you’re here, Tony.” Natasha whispers in his ear, barely there, but the meaning of the words is so raw and truthful that it flows into him like a living thing, and before he knows it, his hands are closing in, and he’s hugging her back, even if it’s shaky, even if it’s still not sure.

He hugs her back, and he doesn’t think about what it means besides the obvious – he’s glad she’s here too –, and far too soon, she steps back and is gone from his arms.

Before Tony can even process the shift of his emotions and thoughts when she does so, the presence close to her registers in his fuzzy mind, and Tony’s eyes dart up a little wide, and, to be completely honest, a little shocked.

“Thor.” Tony exhales, winded. “I didn’t know you were—"

Here.

Because he hasn’t been. Bruce had said he’d been gone. He hadn’t known. Thor—

How long has it been since Tony last saw Thor? Jesus, it’s been a really long time.

Since Ultron. Holy shit.

Thor has been gone looking for the Infinity Stones. He’s been gone for years, while they were down here, fighting over pieces of paper and wanted men, and when that realization drops hard on Tony’s head, he feels like the biggest asshole in the entire universe. Thor had been out there, and Tony had almost forgotten, had almost made himself forget, made himself pretend the threat wasn’t out there so he could live his blissful, peaceful life, making everyone around him believe he wasn’t paranoid about the imminent threat anymore. All the while, Thor had been gone – doing the work Tony should have done. Keeping watch. Getting ready. Tony should have kept trying, even after what happened to Ultron; but he didn’t, he couldn’t, and he left all that crap on Thor’s shoulders and moved on.

And some shit has gone down. It very obviously has. Not only because the world is ending, or because the stones are gone – but Thor has short hair, and different colored eyes, and a huge fucking axe.

What the fuck.

What the hell happened to him since he left? Tony is actually too afraid to ask.

Thor looks heartbroken.

Tony didn’t even know Thor could look like this. The guy was just—

Thor had always been as bright as lightning that preceded him, boasting and strong, mighty and comforting, all at once. A presence larger than life, that no matter how he posed himself, gentle or careful or angry – because Tony had seen him angry, too –, but even then, Thor never, ever, looked small.

He’s still incredibly tall and massive. That is not the issue.

The issue is that he feels small. Subdued. Muted.

A thunder that roars too far away, muffled, with no one around to hear it.

“It’s good to see you, Stark.” Thor says, the amicable tone he always carries with him damp and dragged by a heavy rasp, like he has been swallowing rocks and shards of glass in his spare time.

“You too.” Tony replies, because the sheer shock he’s feeling won’t allow him to think of anything else less idiotic to say.

Tony realizes how awkward this is.

Glad you’re here. Good to see you.

Painfully common pleasantries. It sounds like the kind of bullshit Tony used to say to investors in charity balls and auctions, with plastic smiles and a too-tight handshake, to people he despised or didn’t care for at all.

Is this what people say, when the end of the world arrives?

Maybe. Maybe it’s either that or oh God, no or maybe It can’t be. Maybe it’s the most hopeful greeting he could hope for.

He’s glad Thor is here. He’s glad he’s alive, even if he doesn’t look exactly alright; But no one really is, isn’t it? But he’s alive. Tony hadn’t been sure, because Bruce’s and Mantis’ accounts contradicted themselves, and by now, Tony is constantly expecting the worst. But Thor made it, and Tony happy to know it. He and Tony had never been close, definitely not enough to hug it out like Rhodey and Bruce have, but Tony cares about him, and wishes he wasn’t going through this as much as everyone else.

He wonders if Thor lost anybody.

And then, he remembers Jane Foster, and remembers that FRIDAY is still running the search for survivors and has yet to give him a report on who made it and who didn’t – and suddenly, he feels a little nauseous, because he doesn’t know what will happen if the final result comes up negative, and how Thor will respond to that information if he doesn’t know it already.

Because Tony absolutely will not be the person that brings that up to him, he averts his gaze and desperately searches for something else to focus on, feeling way too awkward and guilty to just keep staring at Thor’s mismatched eyes, so full with sadness already.

He doesn’t need to go far. Bruce is right next to Thor, watching Tony, wearing baggy clothes and looking like he’s been put in a blender and left there for hours.

“Where did you go?” Bruce asks, rattled, voice pitched with fidgeting nerves, “and why do you have a blue robot with you?”

“I didn’t make her, if that’s what you’re asking.” Tony immediately replies.

That answer doesn’t reassure Bruce as Tony expected it would. In fact, it seems to make him more nervous.

“What the hell happened out there, Tony?”

Tony’s mouth opens loosely, no words forthcoming, even if he does want to give Bruce some reassuring or explanation; When something small and fast passes behind him, scaring Tony, and—

(Wait, that is actually a raccoon right there.)

What?

What the hell. Rhodey hadn’t been joking. That thing is actually a raccoon, walking upright and wearing clothes.

What is going on?

Tony scraps the whole fumbling for an explanation thing almost immediately, distracted by the sudden need to ask questions, the confusion too great to be kept at bay, even by the overwhelming feelings stirring inside his chest – because honestly, Bruce is worried about Nebula when they suddenly have a humanoid raccoon with them, as if that’s not just as weird? Maybe more?

But before he can get a single word out to inquire about it, a rustle of movement catches at the corner of his eye, from far away, over Bruce’s shoulder, and Tony turns his head instinctively, totally forgetting himself, the automatic response to stiffen up and prepare himself for an attack too raw and real for him to stop it, and everything that happens after that is just a blur.

If he had been paying attention, he maybe wouldn’t have done that.

Maybe he would have forced himself to stay with his shoulders down, faking ease, and would have had the chance to remind himself that he can do this.

But he’s not. He’s not paying attention.

He’s not, so what happens is—

The last person inside the Quinjet steps out, like he’s walking into his death, and Tony’s jaw clicks shut so tight he thinks he cracks a tooth or two with the force of the movement.

Rogers.

The raccoon walks by Tony and walks towards Nebula, and Tony doesn’t give a shit.

That’s how tense he is.

It’s Rogers.

Jesus fuck.

Great. Honestly, no, this is fucking great.

Shit.

What happens in Tony’s chest in that moment is not something he can describe. How could he – what words would be able to express the depth of what happens to his brain and his heart when he thinks of Steve Rogers, the man that – the one person that can manage not to be in Tony’s life for years and still ruin it, still make it harder and much more painful that it should be?

The only thing he can come up with that is sort of rational, that can be put into words and maybe said out loud, is the most stupid thing he could think of:

Rogers has a fucking beard now.

Which is just as irrelevant and ridiculous as his observation about Natasha’s hair is. It’s not a big deal. It’s not. Apparently, they all had a makeover while Tony wasn’t looking, Thor included. It is literally not something relevant at all.

But his uniform—

He’s using a completely destroyed Captain America suit, dyed darker and torn and ragged, missing the silver star on the chest, no helmet in sight, and seeing it it’s like being punched in the gut.

It doesn’t matter. Whatever happened to Rogers, it doesn’t matter, alright?

It’s not his business.

Rogers walks slow, slow enough that compared to all the others it almost seems like he’s avoiding each and every step forward, rethinking it at least twice every time he takes a stride, even if the expression in his face is just blank calm and determination.

Watching him walk closer is both relieving and grating. Tony doesn’t – Tony doesn’t wish anyone to die, that’s not the sort of person he is. He wouldn’t do something like that. And no matter how angry he had been with Rogers, how many hours of sleep he lost because of the selfish asshole, Tony has never wanted him to suffer.

(Wait.)

(No, that’s not exactly true.)

Tony has never wanted him to just disappear or be gone from existence. He’d wanted many things, but never that. So yeah, he’ll give, he’s kind of glad Rogers is still alive, because Tony really doesn’t want this all to go down to one more regret he’ll add to his never-ending list, one more thing he’ll have to shove down and pretend it doesn’t hurt for the rest of his days, especially now that he can’t even count with the help of bitter alcohol to wash off the taste from his tongue.

On the other hand—

Tony is not…

Tony is not happy he is here.

He really isn’t.

It’s complicated. It’s very, very complicated. The thing is – he understands why Rogers is here, okay? He does. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, and Tony is a genius; Rogers is here because he said he would be, as he always is when it all goes south. As he said it himself, he can’t help it. Wherever trouble appears, Steve Rogers comes barging in, ready to fight and command and probably destroy a building or two, depends on who they’re fighting and for what end.

(Huh.)

(He’d thought all that time for reflection had dissipated some of this bitterness.)

(Nope. Still feeling kind of bitter, not going to lie.)

So yeah. The world is ending, and Captain America answered the call. Perfectly normal. Tony understands that.

But Tony doesn’t have any problem with Captain America. Not any more than he already had by the time he was twenty.

No.

It’s entirely Steve Rogers that Tony isn’t comfortable being around right now.

The very same Steve Rogers that’s been looking at him nonstop ever since he stepped off the Quinjet, and is walking closer, and closer, and Tony hates that he still feels a little waver of unease and apprehension at the sight of Roger’s figure stepping straight in his direction, with nothing but a hard, cold stare in his eyes, back so stiff and hands clenched into fists, like he’s going to battle.

Apparently, that day in Siberia had never left him too. Apparently, he’s still angry.

Or maybe he’s angry about something else. About Tony being gone two days without a word. About Tony not being able to stop Ebony Maw in the first place.

About Tony not calling.

Many things to be angry about. All Tony has to do is pick one and they can fight about it. Just like the old days.

The old days.

Ain’t that a laugh?

Tony had trusted him, once.

Tony doesn’t trust a lot of people, but he had trusted Steve Rogers.

He had trusted him because If there was anyone Tony has believed would be fair and just and do whatever it took to make sure he’ll save everyone, it would be Steve Rogers. Not because he was Captain America, but because Rogers was – he was a stubborn asshole, a guy that refused to back down and be defeated, that would rather get himself killed in battle than let civilians be harmed. Tony had admired that. When that stubbornness clashed with his own and when Steve would give him that disappointed look or bicker about something; Tony had taken all of it in stride, because he’s a good sport, and despite what everyone thinks, Tony does listen to criticism. He’s goal-oriented, for fuck’s sake. He’s an engineer. Tony listens when people complain, because that’s how he knows what he has to improve, and he knows there’s a lot of shit he could improve in matters of team-dynamics. Steve had been their leader. Tony had listened, and Tony had tried.

Because he’d trusted Steve. Even when they fought even when Steve was out there, doing the very same things Tony asked him not to do, not seeing how catastrophic it would be when the consequences of his actions finally weighted on the civilians – even then, Tony had believed in him.

Not agreed, but believed. Believed Steve believed he’d been doing the right thing. And even if it gave Tony the biggest headache he had ever felt to that day, he could understand, and he could respect it, because Tony knows what’s like to have his thoughts clouded by fear and distrust and paranoia. All Tony had been doing was trying to get Steve to see his intentions, to see he wanted to help. All Tony had wanted was Steve to understand that… even if it was happening in the worst of ways, even if Tony had made him feel cornered or fucked up in some other way unknowingly, Tony was trying, and all he had wanted to do was to help.

But that was before Siberia.

Before something deep inside Tony had decided that Steve Rogers can never get too close anymore.

Rogers stops in front of him at a sort of respectable distance, close enough to cause Tony an extreme discomfort and self-consciousness, but not close enough to disguise the blatant, unspoken gap between them, and just stands there.

Tony feels like they are all watching them, but he can’t avert his gaze to check.

(He doesn’t trust either himself or Rogers enough.)

“Tony.” Rogers says as a greeting, bland and impersonal and tight in his throat, as if he’s holding back all sorts of other words, and Tony can’t fucking do anything but stare back, because he doesn’t trust himself to do anything but react to whatever Rogers will say.

“Rogers.” And he almost wants to flinch, because that sounds awful, in so many ways – the crack in his voice, the cold indifference of the surname, so automatic at this point that Tony hadn’t even realized how it would sound if he said it out loud.

It makes him sound petty. Christ, that’s not what he meant to do; But he won’t stand here and pretend he can take the familiarity, that he can still trust Rogers and naively believe he’s his friend after what happened between them.

It’s not the time, he knows – Alright? He knows it’s not the time. Tony shouldn’t even be thinking about this, it’s so ridiculous of him, to be concerned with this when the world is literally ending around them, but he just won’t.

Tony can fight with him – against him or beside him, whatever it’s necessary. He can do it. He can accept the fact that they’re here now, they’re back, and in the worst circumstances ever, not when they should be; But Tony can overlook all of that in favor of working together and fixing this mess and saving the world. He can do it. It’s not a problem.

But he won’t—

He won’t stand here and let himself be fooled twice.

If he forgets himself, this will all go to his head again, will make him slip, and it will hurt him again.

No.

He can be professional. He can be polite and be cooperative and work along.

But he can’t do this whole I thought I was your friend thing again. It won’t end well, for either of them.

Steve makes a face so dark and stormy that Tony, for a second, thinks he’s going to be punched in the face. He can’t even step back because he’s just so surprised with how quick this went south—

(Less than five seconds. New record.)

—But it never comes.

Instead, what follows is:

“I’m glad you’re here.”

And it’s stiff and awkward and so, so painful that Tony wants to run away, he doesn’t want to do this, because what should he say in response to that?

He can’t think of anything, so he nods. That’s all he does, a nod. He tries to say ‘you too’, but the sound won’t come out of his mouth, so he just ends up moving his lips in a vague imitation of the sentence. Roger’s lips twist anxiously, like those words he’s keeping in are just trying to claw their way up his throat and out of his mouth, and he’s keeping them in by sheer will alone, jaw locked so tight not even a crowbar could force open his teeth.

They keep staring at each other.

Or rather, Rogers keep staring at him, and Tony stares back because Tony doesn’t back down.

It’s the most awkward Tony has felt in a very long time.

“What happened to you?” Rhodey interrupts, and God bless him, because it was all becoming a little too much there, and he needed an out before he did something that would only make this entire thing worst.

Tony turns from Rogers so quickly it almost feels like he rips their staring contest apart, and finds Rhodey with eyes zeroed on the bandages on his torso as he speaks, before his eyes flicker back up, concerned. “You jumped inside a spaceship and were gone. And then you come back two days later, still alive. What the hell was going on up there?”

“Glad to know you’re so happy that I survived.” Tony sarcastically says, hoping the banter will bring back some sense of relief and recognition to this far-too-emotionally-exhausting day, glad to ignore Rogers for a little while longer if that means he can breathe normally.

“Where’s Quill?”

The voice is not Rhodey’s. It comes from behind Tony, and so he turns bewildered to find Nebula and the raccoon standing in front of one another, much like he and Rogers had, and Nebula’s head is hanging down sorrowfully as the raccoon stares up at her, it’s entire posture alerting aggression.

It’s the raccoon.

The raccoon is speaking. To Nebula.

“Where’s everyone?” The raccoon asks, in a human voice, what the fuck, and his voice is raspy and smoky and grating, and it sounds distressed and pissed off and so, so sad. “Nebula. Where are they?”

Tony looks back at her, worried, and he sees the way her lips twitch and wobble, just a little, and her eyes go impossibly darker with sadness.

“Where are they!?” The raccoon demands, desperate, and Tony remembers them –Quill, Mantis, Drax. Gamora, Nebula’s sister, the one he never met.

They’re all gone now.

And the raccoon had been down here this whole time, and he didn’t know.

“They didn’t make it.” Nebula answers, curtly, and her words are clipped and snippy, as if she pushed them out of her mouth as fast as she could to keep something else inside, to stop it from escaping.

“No.” The raccoon steps back, as if Nebula slapped him. “You’re lying.”

She’s not.

(She’s not lying.)

“Tell me you’re lying!” He screams, as Nebula closes her eyes and turns her head to the side, trying to hide her face from the screams. “No!”

‘Glad you’re here.’

‘Good to see you.’

‘No.’

‘Oh God, no.’

No!” The raccoon yells, pulling his own fur in distress, pacing around aimlessly, deliriously, his voice drunk with sorrow. “No.

‘It can’t be.’

‘No’

(Yeah.)

(Because what other reaction can you have when the entire universe has fallen apart?)

Tony watches with a heavy heart as the raccoon tears at his own fur and screams, screams and curses, cries hopelessly with a grief and an anger that only those who have lost it all can reach. The full breakdown. It’s explosive and torturous and sad, and it echoes deep in Tony’s own heart, in all of their hearts, because that – that was them, for the past two days, every single time they reached for someone and realized they weren’t there.

They all probably saw Sam, Wanda, and Barnes disappear. T’Challa too. And who knows how many others in T’Challa’s army, people they might’ve been friends with.

Tony saw the Guardians go. He saw Peter go.

Nebula lost Gamora.

And that raccoon—

That raccoon seems to have lost everyone.

He cries, and Nebula doesn’t comfort him – because she doesn’t know how –, and neither does anyone else – because they can’t –, so they all just stand there, watching; As he curses the entire universe, the bitter hunger for revenge scratching at the edges of his voice, like nails on a chalkboard – and the universe, in return, only swallows them in darkness and cold, and does not reply.

Notes:

Hope you weren't expecting a SteveTony hug. It's going to take a lot of work before we get there ;)

From here on out, I will loosely divide this fic into arcs - and in each one, we'll discuss a different character, and address whatever issues need to be addressed by that character, and take a deeper look into their relationship with Tony. I say loosely because you'll be able to see clearly their starting point, but you probably won't be able to see the ending point, not for all of those arcs. Some issues transcend a two-person relationship. Some issues involve all of them. Some issues never end. The lines will get a little blurred sometimes.

But we'll go through them all, one by one - Starting in the next chapter, where we'll begin at the only possible starting point: the one and only, Pepper Potts.

Thank you all for reading, leaving kudos, commenting, and subscribing! See you in the next one :)

Chapter 5: Chapter 5

Notes:

Pepper Potts. PA, friend, lover, CEO, ex-lover, fiancé. That's quite a ride. Honestly, how could I begin anywhere other than here?

I've been trying my best to find a way from all the Point A's to the Point B's the MCU created and never properly navigated through, and I'm trying to do it with logic characterization - so you can probably tell why Pepper is a character that demands some of my attention. There sure is a lot of controversy surrounding Pepper and her relationship with Tony. Some people will defend Pepper with all their might, and some people will shun her out with no mercy, and to be perfectly honest, both sides have some very compelling arguments for their reasoning; But that little gray area between those two is where I thrive, and that's where we'll find the balance between Tony's view of Pepper, Pepper's view of herself, and the true effect of her presence and actions, and how that affects our views, as spectators, of her.

Whether you like Pepper or not, you have to admit that her relationship with Tony is definitely important to his character, and she is, effectively, one of the pillars of his story. I think killing her off with the snap or pretending she was never a romantic partner to Tony is, although effective, a dangerous play because it erases some subtleties that can only be observed if Pepper is present. So actually, what I have to do is not to eliminate Pepper from the equation, but to push her into a position that forces her to voice her opinions and position in a way that not even Tony's personal view or feelings are able to distort their meaning, for better or for worse.

And I know exactly how to do it. Because the MCU has already shown us how, over and over again.

This whole 'they're together, and now they're not' and the 'she's cool with iron man, and now she's not' mess? This thing that's never properly explained, and it seems to be the main issue that divides people's opinions of Pepper? That's where the secret lies. Even if I can imagine what happened in all those in-betweens we never saw, the barely-there suggestion of the issues between Tony and Pepper in the movies is never openly addressed (properly), and for this mess to be solved, guessing won't be enough. We need something more substantial. Something that will amount to a significant character trait, and, more importantly, something that ties in with canon nicely. Nevermind that this is a SteveTony fic. Understanding Pepper is essential to understanding Tony - to know what he needs, we need to know why he needs Pepper, and every other person he seems to be inevitably drawn towards over and over again.

And it comes with additional worldbuilding and plot support! Who doesn't love some multipurpose conflict?

So Pepper Potts gets the chance to be the first on the hot seat this time around. Let's set up the stage with the most important issue: What is the thing that constantly strains their relationship? Is it Iron Man, or something else? Let's talk about it. To do that, the first thing we need is some comparative perspective: who is Pepper and who are the Avengers in Tony's life, at this point in time? What do they represent? What does it mean, if Tony chooses to act in favor of one over the other; to himself, to the side he picks, and to the side he doesn't?

Pepper is pivotal to Tony's story. Not only because he loves her, or because she's been there since the beginning, even if those are very important things - But because Pepper brings to the table a unique opportunity to discuss one of the core subjects of any Iron Man story:

Priorities and Purpose.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The problem is that they all want to speak to him. Right now.

Tony is barely able to stand in his own feet. He wants to be angry about his own lazy disposition, about how tired his muscles feel or how his bones don’t seem to be strong enough to hold him up, too weak for even this simple task, but Tony knows, at least at the back of his head, that he isn’t twenty anymore; And he is without food, much water or proper sleep for over three days, and he has fought the universe’s biggest asshole during that same time period.

If Tony was a little calmer, he would ask them to slow down. If Tony was anyone else at all, he would have told them that and asked them for a little room to breathe.

But Tony does not.

Because he doesn’t get the luxury of resting on this, not now. Not ever.

Every single breath Tony takes in that’s too deep damn nearly sends him into panic, every beat of his heart is painful and a reminder that soon enough, if he doesn’t do anything – they, if they don’t do anything – it will soon be his last, and they probably don’t know, and he knows he needs to tell them.

“You jumped inside a spaceship,” Rhodey says after they’ve finally stepped back inside the Compound, and it’s a recapitulation as much as it is a reprimand, and his crossed arms and worried brows tell Tony he’s not escaping this without a proper explanation, maybe not even then. “With no backup, no plan, and no way of communicating.”

Oh boy, he’s mad, isn’t he?

Tony will suffer for that later. That sure is going to be a lot of fun.

“Had to save the wizard.” Tony says, which is not a proper explanation at all, but he hopes he can escape the inquisition if he makes himself look tired enough that Rhodey will go easy on him.

And even if Tony is dramatic, which he acknowledges just fine, this time he isn’t faking it. He is tired. He truly would appreciate a little sympathy right now, just a little bit. He is not faking it when he wobbles on his way to the couch, just as he’s not faking the wince that escapes him when his movement pulls at the wound under the bandages and stings. Pepper’s hands on his shoulders are gentle and soothing, and Tony sighs and relaxes under their touch, but he can’t truly ignore the dull but constant ache in his legs and arms, the weight of his own head on his poor, stiff neck, and the bottomless pit of darkness and dread that swirls inside him, silent, but fatal, like a black hole, a star that has extinguished and now can never return.

It’s just… a lot.

It’s a lot.

The outside and the inside, the chaos of the last three days versus the bitterness that brewed slowly during the past three years, all hitting him at once, and it’s very difficult to focus, even more so when he’s in such a terrible condition. It’s hard to feel. He’s trying not to think about it, the inside, he really is, because he has so much on his plate already without adding personal conflict  to the mix – but he can see the way Natasha’s eyes dart all over the place, sweeping the location to assess the danger, but also to take in the sight of the Compound with sharp eyes, a glint of something sorrowful hiding deep inside them, a feeling of nostalgia Tony will pretend doesn’t hurt him as well, to see it there, to assume and think too much of it, to allow himself to hope for things he will never recover now.

Bruce and Thor don’t do it, not like Natasha does, because it’s not the same for them, even if they do relax when they leave the open field and are back again inside the safety of a secure building, and it pangs on his chest for a whole another reason, for nostalgia and regret, something softer, something quiet.

But it’s still a lot.

Rogers? Tony won’t even dare to think about.

Too many assumptions, too close to home.

(He probably missed it too.)

(But in a way someone misses an old childhood toy.)

(Something that once meant so much, meant the world)

(But then time passed)

(And now it doesn’t matter anymore)

(Not like it used to.)

No. Shut up. Not thinking about it.

(But you know—)

No, you stay quiet.

In the end, the inescapable truth is this: they are, for the first time in years, after one of the worst fights Tony has ever fought, together again. Almost all of them. Together.

Whatever together means now. Whatever this whole thing means.

They are all scattered across the lounge, sitting on the chairs and sofas and leaning on counters and walls, a weird distance between them, like no one can handle too much proximity, especially in a room suddenly so full of people like this. Tony finds it weird, but at the same time, he’s thankful for it, because it does feel like too much right now, and the only people he feels like can handle close are Pepper, Rhodey and, surprisingly, Nebula. So he’s glad that all three of them stay close by, even if the raccoon, the one that clearly knows who Nebula is, stands far in the back, almost hidden behind the large sofa in which Thor and Bruce sit, and neither he nor Nebula make the effort of being close or offering comfort to one another.

It’s awkward, just like the rest of them. Tony wonders what sort of story they have there. He wonders if Nebula would ever tell him.

But then again, his story is messy too. And would he ever tell her?

Probably not.

“Wizard?” Thor asks, sounding very confused. “What wizard?”

“Strange.” Bruce confirms, but in a way only Tony truly understands; And all the others look at him like he’s insane, like “strange” doesn’t even begin to cover it, and he rolls his eyes and motions to Tony with his head. “No, the guy Tony went after. His name is Strange. Stephen Strange.”

(Is.)

(Weird, isn’t it?)

(How such a small word can be painful.)

“Who was he?” Natasha asks, her voice uncharacteristically raspy, and Tony doesn’t miss the way she slides the correction softly into her question, so smoothly Bruce doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, her eyes locked to Tony’s in search for an answer.

“The guy who had the Time Stone.” Tony says, and they all go stiff at the same time. “The creepy alien in the spaceship was looking for him. I tried to make him leave, but he wasn’t having it, and the bastard abducted him. So I followed, and tried to get the wizard back.”

“Where did he take you?”

“Titan.” Tony answers, completely aware he’s omitting the entire section of the story where he killed the guy with the help of a sixteen-year-old, and he decided to take the fight to Thanos, not the other way around.

He just doesn’t want to deal with the judgment over this particular fuck-up right now. Because it will happen if he tells them, it will. Loud, angry, sharp judgment, wrapped up all pretty in a shiny box of utter disappointment, from seven different points in the same room. No, Tony doesn’t want to deal with that right now. He’s hating himself enough for now without the added commentary from the third parties.

Do the details even matter right now? They don’t. They really don’t.

“The moon? In Saturn?” Bruce asks, frowning confusedly.

“Apparently.” Tony makes a gesture that’s not exactly a shrug, but it’s close. It’s too twitchy to be quite what it should be. “It’s where he lived. His people.”

“We never registered life in Saturn before.” Bruce continues, unconsciously derailing the conversation in the way he always does when something piques his interest, like he always does. Tony is actually kind of glad to see it happen, even after the end of the world. Anything that provides even the smallest feeling of familiarity is welcome. “Were there people living there?”

“Not anymore.” Tony shakes his head. “It’s all destroyed now. Apparently, the one we got was the last one standing.”

“Did he kill them? His people?” Rogers asks, and his voice cuts through the line of focus Tony had between himself and Bruce like a knife, slicing the fake casing of security so easily Tony struggles not to wince.

“He tried, that’s for sure.” He grumbles, mostly to himself, and because he knows that’s not helpful, he continues, “But no. Happened on its own. He said the resources were scarce and the population was too big, so he made a proposal: To kill half of them before they all starved.”

A very, very heavy pause hangs in the room for a moment.

“Did they agree?” Bruce’s eyes widen, with the same intensity of Rhodey's frown.

“No.” Tony explains, “and apparently, that killed them all. Or so he said.”

“Considering that this is what he had in mind to avoid the issue I’m not sure I trust his judgement.” Natasha grumbles with seething sarcasm, her lips pressed tight into a line.

“That’s why he wanted the gauntlet.” Tony elaborates, after giving Natasha an agreeing nod. “To make half the creatures in the entire universe disappear.”

“The creature who attacked us said the same thing.” Thor mentions, and they all turn to him, curious. “Something about making sacrifices to achieve balance.”

“Well, it clearly didn’t work out, did it?” Rhodey snaps, irritable – and Tony can see his nerves fraying at the edges by his posture, by the strong lines of his veins in his forearms, tight as he crosses them over his chest, a gesture that is so obviously an attempt to protect himself that it makes a hot, stinging desperation to soothe and reassure flare inside Tony’s chest. “What’s happening out there isn’t balance, it’s just cruel. It’s killing people. He’s killing everything.”

The harshness, the naked, unmasked truth of the words hurts, cuts deep and thin, aiming to the core, because they all what to refute it, want to be able to offer comfort words or to stand their ground and refuse the sorrow and hopelessness to drag them down, but they can’t. They are all so exhausted. They have survived the end of the world, an what for? What good did it do, to be lucky enough to dodge the bullet? There’s no real way to feel grateful for still being alive when you know so many people are gone,  and it doesn’t matter if some of your loved ones survived – they can be relieved for each other, but not for themselves.

Who in their right mind can be grateful for getting a first-row ticket to watch the world burn?

Tony suspects that every single person in this room, including himself, would gladly give their life if it meant they could fix this.

And it’s that just the very job description of being a superhero? To sacrifice yourself so others won’t have to? To protect them? To avenge them?

The irony of it tastes like pennies on his tongue.

It’s more messed up than just killing half the population. It’s worse. It’s doing it a way that the only thing that remains of them, the only tangible thing they left when they disappeared, the thing that is already too painful to think about – it’s taking that thing and have it be the cause of the death of whoever is left, in a long, slow, agonizing pace, to literally choke them in their grief.

That’s just… That’s the worst of it all.

Tony’s lips feel so dry it’s like he hasn’t spoken in ages. He tries to open his mouth to say the words, to tell them, but it’s hard, and when he makes the mistake of looking away from the room towards the glass wall to his left, to stare up at the dark, ominous sky, he feels the heavy weight of a gaze following his movements, like the aim of a rifle, but far too close, too personal, too much.

“Do you know?” Rogers asks, asks him, and Tony turns to look at him on instinct, and it’s so jarring to see those blue eyes staring back with something other than the rage he last saw there, to look and see that intensity, that sad, deep, tight sorrow simmering below the surface, and to feel it weight on him like a physical thing, like a touch he cannot brush off. His eyes, the beard, the dark uniform - it gets under Tony's skin, somehow. “What happened out there? When he snapped his fingers?”

“Yeah.” Tony says, slowly. “Do you know?”

“We were in Wakanda when it happened.” Rogers explains. “We saw it. The people, and then, later, the trees—”

Oh. They know.

Fuck.

“Tony.” Bruce calls, a little urgent, leaning forward and raising his hands in a placating gesture, as if he’s getting ready to steady Tony if it’s needed, like he sees something in Tony’s face that makes him frightened, makes him worry. “He didn’t take only the people—”

“Yes, animals and plants too, I’ve heard about it. FRIDAY filled me in.” Tony interrupts, feeling a little breathless. “How did you hear about it?”

“T’Challa’s sister’s lab had all sort of sensors monitoring every surface of the planet. Filtered info in real time, all the time. We saw—” Bruce clears his throat, looking more uncomfortable than Tony has ever seen him. “We saw the numbers.”

“So you know about the dust.” Tony says, and it’s not a question. “You know that that’s what’s causing this, don’t you?”

“We do.” Rhodey replies, and the pure, so profound agony in his dark eyes feels like a physical blow into Tony’s chest, and he wants to reach out, wants to hug him, wants to help him, but it’s useless.

“We’ve been flying around, looking for survivors and trying to help as many people as we can, but it’s just—” Bruce shrugs, but not out of nonchalance, just pure awkwardness and completely uncomfortable, almost hopeless. “Everything’s destroyed. We don’t even know where to begin.”

Natasha interjects, her voice a little surer, but still wrapped around a sad, muted wave, rough around the edges, choking tears down with hard, inescapable facts. “We were able to gather food and bring people to shelter, but these are all temporary measures. There’s no use bringing them to shelters that have no light and no heating, and the world gets colder every day. The food will eventually run out, too.”

And it doesn’t get easier to hear it from someone else’s mouth other than his own thoughts. Good to know.

“We have to start production back up.” Pepper suggests, after they all make a pointed pause. “Reorganize whoever’s left and… find a way to get things running again. Water, power, medical—"

“It’s not that simple.”

To their surprise, it’s the raccoon that interrupts. The raccoon, and Tony still can’t quite grasp that this is truly happening, no matter how many weird things he has seen during his years as a goddamned superhero; The raccoon finally pushes himself off his lean on the wall and walks closer, his stride surprisingly confident for someone that can only look so menacing being so short and… furry, and gets closer, speaking for the first time since they all gathered here, seemingly unable to hold himself back any longer even for his grief. 

Maybe it’s the strangeness of it all – or maybe is his tone, the seriousness in it, the dark underlying notes of looming, terrible news hidden beneath short and unassuming words, but they all go quiet despite being relentlessly arguing back and forth for the past who knows how many minutes, and they let him come closer and join their unconscious formation, to close the circle they created across the room, with a sense of finality, of decision, so strong it rattles something inside Tony without his permission.

“It’s not.” The raccoon says, to Pepper, of all people. “It doesn’t matter how fast you act or how many people you save. It’s not enough.”

Pepper opens her mouth to argue, her eyes lit with raging indignation, but before she can speak, Bruce softly interjects:

“Rocket’s right.” He says in an apologetic tone. “It’s not that simple. The problem… The problem is not the lack of a functioning society, it’s the lack of the proper conditions to make the planet habitable. Soon enough we won’t have sunlight.”, he gestures towards the pitch-black night outside, to emphasize his point, “The ashes didn’t disappear, they just scattered. Eventually, the chemicals and particles will rise to the atmosphere and they will block sunlight, which will kill the rest of the plants that are left, and it’ll slowly take down the entire food chain with it. Not to mention the air. We don’t know what’s in those ashes. We don’t even know if we’ll be able to breathe when that happens. We don’t even know if they’re killing us right now.”

Tony feels more than hears Pepper’s sharp inhale, her hand tightening on his shoulder, pinching in a strong, almost painful manner.

“It still hasn’t rained.” Bruce also mentions. “When it does, the water will be contaminated. It’ll ruin the soil. It might even get people sick. We… We are living in a hostile planet now. A planet that has no conditions to support life. If we don’t do something to fix that, whatever we do to help the people that are left will be for nothing.

“We can’t just let them die out there!” Pepper argues all the same, nearly enraged.

“That’s not what I’m saying!” Bruce defensively exclaims. “What I’m saying is—”

“What he’s saying,” the raccoon rasps, sauntering forward with faltering strides, like the exhaustion doesn’t allow him to walk in a straight line anymore, as if to put himself between Pepper and Bruce, to make himself the focus and to be heard. “is that saving the people won’t be enough. You can’t just gather everyone who’s left and try to rebuild what you had with half the population. That’s not how it works, because that’s not what’s killing the planet. Before you fix that, you can’t fix anything else, because it won’t stick.”

“The rabbit is right.” Thor says, and completely ignores the muttered he’s not a rabbit that Bruce says beside him in favor of saying, insightfully, “Before any attempt to rebuild what was lost, we need to ensure that they’ll have conditions to live. Being in an isolated place with no resources can also harm the people.”

Tony takes in a sharp breath, a sudden realization dawning on him.

“Hostile planet.” And then, he looks at Nebula, and finds her looking back, eyes knowing and affirming, and he knows he is right. “The same thing that happened to Titan. That’s what’s gonna happen to us.”

Tony had wondered what had happened on Titan, when he was there. When he first saw the vast, endless destruction and debris, the solitude of its’ sands, stones and metal, the skeletons of what once could’ve been a living planet – even as his eyes scanned the terrain looking for advantage points and possible traps, his mind mostly focused on the threat of Thanos about to arrive; That little corner of his mind, the one that’s paranoid, curious, and never shuts up, that tiny piece of him had wondered:

How? How does such a thing happen?

When he saw the size of the destruction, he had assumed something quick, explosive and violent, like a disaster, a war, a bomb, the things that make the world catch fire instantly and leave only carcasses behind, with no time to attempt escape or plan for salvation. A swift, but no less cruel death. It’s what he always thinks, as a former weapons manufacturer. He knows how lethal weapons can be, maybe better than anyone else, seeing that one of his own weapons nearly killed him once.

But that’s not it. That’s obviously not it. The answer is staring Tony right in the face right now, glaring and familiar, so ironically close to home that it almost makes him want to laugh. It’s not quick destruction, like a bomb blowing up or a Jericho missile plummeting down from the skies to lighten the world on fire – it’s slow, silent and just as deadly, crashing from the inside out, self-destructive instinct finally being let loose, destroying itself.  

The world will not explode – it has already been cracked, and now it will crumble from within. It’s just human nature. It’s just… nature.

Two days in and people are already stealing and rioting, or so FRIDAY said. Two days in and soon enough, the resources will grow so scant people will start to fight over them. Things go really bad when desperation truly hits, who can tell what will happen when they all start turning on each other? Will they become violent enough to hurt? To kill each other?

And the people who are out there that can’t do that, the ones that are afraid and desperate; How will they survive that? What will they do, when they’re left with no other choice?

And this is – this is on a small scale. Tony has no idea what has happened to the governments. Hell, T’Challa was a King, and now he’s gone. What happened to Wakanda? Is someone there to watch over it? Is the US president still alive? Does it even matter? If the situation is so dire that people will start abandoning their posts and running away, what guarantee does anyone have that anything will be safe? People go mad without order. Tony can talk big and rant about not following rules, he can put on an arrogant face and act on his rebel persona all he likes, but by now, he is far beyond the years of not acknowledging the importance of having a guide, a moral, a purpose. He wants to believe the best of people, he really does, because admitting that people can be so cruel hurts deeply, no matter how many times it happens, but he can’t deny it that he has seen what people can become, and  the possibility will always be there at the back of his head, even if he tries to hide it.

No one is immune to it. They all have a dark side.

If they don’t do anything, Titan is their future. The same destruction, the same silence, the same vast, endless echoes of nothing buried beneath ashes and dirt.

Tony has seen it with his own two eyes, he has seen it – and he cannot let it happen.

“We’ll probably have to divide in groups—” Thor is saying, and Tony realizes he lost a chunk of the conversation, lost in his own thoughts for who knows how long, his focus still blurred and difficult to listen to the exchange before him with his full attention.

“No, we can’t divide.” Rogers adamantly says, and Tony wishes he wasn’t this childish right now, but—

(Rich, coming from you, Cap.)

But he actually agrees, this time. He agrees. Tony doesn’t want them separating, not before he can get his own head sorted out and find a way to process this without the complete, bottomless dread and fear clouding his judgment, feeding into the catastrophe steaming from his memories and leaking poison and panic into his logic.

“When you have a limited number of allies, organizing teams is more efficient.” Thor calmly arguments “It’s what we did, after we fled from Asgard.”

(Wait, what was that?)

Feeling from Asgard?

“We don’t know how bad the situation is out there.” Rogers argues back, and the back and forth, the posturing, the arguing; it’s all making Tony’s head ache terribly, the pulsing of his own blood loud in his ears, rhythmic, throbbing and aching sensation behind his eyeballs, all the way up to his brain. “We can’t divide.”

“Well, then how do you suggest we manage both the rescue and trying to save the planet?” Rhodey asks, turning to Rogers, not contrary but a little annoyed.

They will never agree, Tony realizes, panicking slightly. On anything. They are all right and they are all wrong, because there is no right and no wrong, there is no protocol describing what they should do in case of apocalypse. But if they don’t agree, they’ll fight, and if they fight, they’ll part. That’s the thing. The thing is that Tony knows what happens when people part because the situation gets dire, he knows what happens when everyone starts following their own agenda to survive, he knows where this leads them.

He can’t let that happen.

“Rogers’ got a point.” He quickly says, and the words to scrape the inside of his throat as they come up, a little, against his own will, and he tries not to look into Rogers’ face as it snaps in his direction with eyes so intense they could burn holes through him. “We can’t divide now. We have a better chance to come up with something together.”

He tries not to feel offended when they all go suspiciously quiet, thinking his words through, the air feeling extremely uncomfortable.

He also doesn’t think if that uncomfortable feeling is coming from him, from his obvious refusal to look in Rogers’ direction, knowing that the use of the word together struck a few cords that have already been pulled a little too tight between them.

“We can’t just ignore the environmental threat.” Bruce mutters insistently. “If we divide, me, Tony and Rocket can get into the lab as soon as possible and start running tests and finding a solution to get rid of the ashes. If we could reach Shuri—” he trails off and looks hopefully at Natasha and Rogers, but Natasha only averts her eyes and shakes her head minutely, and Bruce’s face falls for a moment.

“—But we need to get into a lab, as soon as possible.” He continues after a beat, forcing his voice to be even and louder, to make sure he’s getting the importance of his point across. “If we divide, you can go and start rescuing people right away, and we can start fixing this. We have to do both at the same time.”

And this is so hard, it's so fucking hard, because they all have a point. They don’t have the numbers and they all have a point, and he doesn’t know what to do.

“We need more people.” Tony says, mostly to himself, and rubs his hands over his eyes, aching with strain and dry as a desert. “We can’t do it all by ourselves.”

“We’ve been trying to find whoever we can.” Natasha informs him. “But we didn’t have any luck. We couldn’t find Scott and Clint—” her voice cracks a little, and they all pretend it didn’t happen as she goes on, “—, and we also couldn’t find Fury. We thought they could help, but we can’t find them.”

“FRIDAY is running some data.” Tony tells her, and it comes out as a reassurance without him meaning to. “We still haven’t found anyone, but you never know.”

Natasha nods, and she looks like she wants to believe him, but can’t quite make herself to do it.

No one says anything, because they all have already laid out their arguments and their doubts, their worries bleeding in between the spaces of their words, and they still can’t find a middle ground. They have to choose.

Tony needs to choose.

It’s possible that Rogers and the others have been discussing this for days, and now that Tony’s here, they want him to choose. They’re waiting to see what he thinks, to know which side he’ll pick. It’s not— It’s not that Pepper’s opinion doesn’t matter, or that he knows better, because he knows he doesn’t, it’s just that this is what always happens; They reach an impasse, they hit a road-block, and they all argue about it until enough of them give in to the most supported solution. They have all laid their arguments, but no one has been able to convince the others to change their mind.

But usually, it’s Rogers who decides.

And usually, it’s Tony who disagrees with him.

Tony doesn’t know when this habit formed between them, when they all just reached a point where it’s nearly instinctual to push a discussion to this threatening point, but the truth is that it always does. Rogers, Tony can understand, because he is – was – their leader, and one of his most praised skills is his strategic proficiency, so his decisions hold much more weight than other members of the team. Tony knows that. Tony has seen it for himself.

But somewhere along the line, this process gained a secondary step. It was completely unconscious, but repetition made them all accustomed to it. Actually, if he tries, Tony’s pretty sure he can count all the times it happened since they first assembled. At the end of the day, Rogers is a man of rapid action and Tony is a man of long-term calculation, and if someone is going to find a counter-argument to Rogers’ logic, it’s going to be him, because they are opposites.

He can feel the weight of their expectations, the anxious wait for his final conclusion because that’s what always happens. He doesn’t know why, he just knows it does. It’s how their dynamic works, like it always has, and feeling it come back so suddenly after so many years not needing to do it is almost jarring, overwhelming, and it makes his lungs feel tight and his mind reel, and the crashing realization of this forgotten responsibility, of this role he’s not sure he can perform again now.

Tony had almost forgotten how it feels to slip into the role of the tenth man, to be the one who will disagree or hesitate almost instinctively to any decision made too-promptly, to be the devil’s advocate. Tony is the one who argues, he’s the one who can look at a situation from multiple angles and find any openings they might’ve missed, he’s the voice of contradiction—

But for almost three years now, no voice has been arguing back.

And now he needs to choose.

And although the looming, incoming threat of a collapsing planet will never leave, will eventually swallow them whole and leave no room for other priorities except holding it up with their bare hands if they have to, this might be the only chance they have to go out there and find more people, people that can help, anyone they might’ve missed in their haste of the first-days search. They have Tony now. They have FRIDAY. Although sometimes it does feel like pulling teeth, they have been known, on occasion, for working better together.

So Tony needs to choose.

They will not divide.

(But he needs to choose.)

“We have to go rescue any survivors we can find.”

Pepper’s sigh behind him is so deep and heartfelt that Tony almost feels bad for how intensely she is experiencing this, how taxing this is being on her, especially when he can see that the others barely react in face of his opinion; The only shift happening in their gaze, as the years and years of habit merely makes them take the new information and immediately add it to their own plans and estimates, barely registering in any emotional way before being converted into a simple mindset of a goal to be achieved.

Except for one thing. Bruce immediately opens his mouth, his eyes wide and frantic, but Tony doesn’t let him speak.

“We can’t physically go everywhere they need us. It’s just impossible.” He admits, even before Bruce can make the argument. “I know. The world is too big and we have don’t have enough people. We would never be able to save everyone. We do need to fix whatever is going on with the planet – but we can’t let people waiting. So, until we figure out what to do, rescuing the survivors is our priority.”

There it is.

His choice.

That is always his choice. Tony will—

Tony does acknowledge how dangerous it is, to pretend the ashes aren’t a huge concern, but he has to make a call. Deep inside him, he knows he’ll never be able to halt the intrinsic, almost visceral instinct to protect people, to throw all other priorities away in favor of making sure the civilians are alright – and he’s going to try that first, always, because that will always be the thought at the forefront of his mind at all times.

Even if that makes Pepper worried sometimes. Many times.

But that is Tony’s choice. It always will be.

But Tony is, in his heart, a multitasker. He has to be. His mind fires in too many directions a once, and for now, this might actually be a good thing; Because he won’t have the luxury to have some downtime later to think about the other elephant in the room calmly. The issue will not go away if he stops looking at it, as it usually and frustratingly does. In fact, the longer he ignores it, the more dangerous it will become. So he needs to do both. He needs to go out there, and save the people, because that’s what he does, what’s what he has to do—

But he has to be quick. He has to be as efficient, as careful, and as smart as he can possibly be.

He won’t have the time to stop and think, so he’ll need to come up with something while he’s out there. On the field.

He can do it.

He can do it.

“Okay.” Pepper says a little breathless, and then frowns, her gaze focused and thoughtful. “Then what do we do from here?”

“I’ll have FRIDAY send a signal to all government lines still functional.” Tony says, thinking out loud. “We’ll see if we can get some help from any nation that might not have completely collapsed yet. But we still need to find a way to reach people who have already lost their communication lines. We need to remind them to stay calm and organize into groups, preferably in the same place. No one should be isolated because if something happens, they might get stuck or be hurt, and with everything destroyed, rescue won’t be able to find them – so they need to stay together.”

“Can FRIDAY hack in old SHIELD satellites?” Natasha suddenly asks.

“Depends on what you’re gonna use them for.” Tony hesitantly replies.

“We can send a signal to all surviving SHIELD agents still online. If they get the message, they can help with keeping the survivors organized.”

“I thought SHIELD had been destroyed years ago?” Rhodey asks, only a hint of an accusation in his voice.

Natasha raises an eyebrow at him. “You really think Fury spent all this time after SHIELD shut down playing golf?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter what Fury has or hasn’t been doing.” Tony says, before turning to Natasha. “You think you can reach them with just a message through FRIDAY?”

“Might be our best chance.”

“How many people?”

“I can’t tell. But they are all over the world, so even if we don’t reach many people, we still might be able to reach many places.”

Tony considers this for a moment, but seeing as he has no better ideas, he nods. “So we’ll do that too. And hopefully, it’ll be enough to buy us some time.”

“And then what?” Bruce asks.

“We go out there and help who we can. Just in the city, we can’t go too far. I don’t even know if we’ll be able to, depending on how many people are out there.”

“There’s a lot of people.” Pepper informs. “A lot of them injured. Some are gathering in public places, but I have no idea how many people are scattered across the city, maybe even trapped by the rubble from the accidents.”

Suddenly, Rogers stands up, and the strength in his posture and the steel sure fire in his otherwise guarded eyes is exhausting to see, almost mocking, and Tony is half glad, half pissed off at the realization that not even the apocalypse can put out the burning pit of spite and rage that seems to forever live inside Steve Rogers, because it’s familiar, it’s almost comforting, and even if Tony can’t help but associate his stubbornness and righteousness with less than pleasant memories, he still feels, deep down, a little twinge of relief in knowing he’s not broken.

“So what’s our plan?” Rogers asks, and he almost sounds earnest and hopeful, so ready to act that is jarring to see in the middle of so many exhausted and defeated people.

And he looks at Tony when he says it – he glances at Pepper, throwing her a confident look, but he stares at Tony, his gaze razor sharp, and Tony shuffles uncomfortably under his scrutiny.

“We have to find the survivors and take them somewhere safe.” Pepper says, hugging Tony closer, but calling all the attention in the room to herself. “The first thing is to bring people to a secure location and keep them together. We need to know where people are, and where other people can go if they can reach help. Checkpoints.”

“We need safe houses.” Tony adds, his spine still tingling with the nagging leftover sensation of Rogers’ stare trickling down his back, the wary feeling of not getting the whole picture when it’s right there, but he ignores the uncomfortable sensation for now, in favor of more pressing matters. “Can’t put them in just any building ‘cause we don’t know which buildings are safe.”

“We’re not going to be able to save them all.” Natasha says, not to rip their plans apart or to be mean, but to be truthful.

“Then we’ll save who we can.” Rogers insists, in that oh so familiar tone, not letting himself to be dragged down by the heavy weight of Natasha’s words.

“But we’re not enough.” Bruce anxiously reminds them. “This didn’t happen just here, it happened all over the world, and we’ll never be fast enough to help everyone who needs it before—”

“We’ll think of something.” Rogers insists, and they all know it’s useless to argue with him when he’s like this, even Bruce, who closes his mouth and nods, despite the fact he still keeps squirming anxiously in his seat next to Thor.

“Bruce.” Tony calls him when he realizes that Bruce might be silently panicking, just a little bit, fearing they are all ignoring the seriousness of his arguments. Tony’s not. Believe him, he is not. “After we gather some information about what’s happening out there first-hand, we bring samples and start working on a solution for this. Tell me what you need to make some tests, and I’ll pick it all up when I can so we can start this as soon as possible.”

Bruce looks at him, grateful and afraid, and Tony knows what it feels like to be the only one in the room screaming arguments that don’t penetrate through people’s stubbornness and refusal to listen, so he really can’t berate Bruce for his fear of them not grasping the big picture of this issue. They are all people who constantly need to make harsh decisions over what to prioritize, what is immediate and what can wait; but for Bruce, who can analyze the data better than the others can, probably better than Tony himself can, the long-term issue can look just as scary, if not more.

Tony understands.

He knows what that feels like.

He feels it in his soul.

“I need to go out there to know for sure.” Tony explains himself to him, hoping that’ll give him a little comfort, a little assurance that Tony isn’t ignoring this, he’s just delaying it a little to gather more information on it, so they’ll know what to do. Because that’s all this is. Tony has been outside for no more than an hour, at most, and despite the hellish scenery he saw when they escaped the hospital he was being treated in, he hasn’t even starched the surface of how vast the destruction of Thanos’ attack had been. He saw the fire, he saw the body—

(Peter—)

—The boy, but that is not enough.

Tony has seen Titan, and he needs to know.

“I wasn’t here. I didn’t see.” Tony says, and the words hurt like he’s being gutted. “So I need to go out there and see it for myself. To help people. And then, I’ll know how to fix it.”

Bruce looks at him, a little jittery but completely silent, until he releases a long, shaky exhale, and nods, looking at Tony with big, wide, trusting eyes, and despite all nervousness and anxiety agitating itself inside Tony, like the water dangerously crashing close to the shore, a flicker of warmth and content blooms in his chest, a small comfort in the middle of the storm.

When this exchange is over, Rhodey runs his hand over his mouth, breathing deeply, and takes one step closer and squares his shoulders, pushing down his despair and irritation and turning himself into the military man they all know he is deep inside, and asks, attentively to their previous planning:

“Okay, so the first thing is finding safehouses.” He reaffirms. “What sort of place would be a safe place in a time like this?”

“Here.” Rogers says, immediately, taking a quick look around. “It has power, water, and it’s big enough to house a lot of people.”

“People need medical assistance.” Pepper also reminds them, and she and several other people look at Bruce expectantly, and Bruce recoils instinctively and retracts into himself, stepping back.

“I can help, but I’m not enough.” Bruce says, a little exasperated. “I am one person, and the number of people outside that need help is certainly far more than what I’m capable of treating by myself. We need specialized crew.”

“What if we gather the surviving doctors and organize them into a team?” Natasha suggests, sounding a little more hopeful.

“That could work.” Thor agrees. “And the more people we gather, the more help we have to continue our search.”

“I don’t know if people will be able to help us with the rescues, Thor. They’ll be pretty traumatized.” The raccoon, Rocket, Bruce called him, says.

“The odds of any mission can be improved if people work together.” Thor says, with a tiny, emotional smile quirking up the corner of his lips, and that sounds like it’s coming from an awfully personal place, something Thor is saying from the heart, more than just a mere motivational speech. “We’d have a better chance.”

It’s… It’s more hopeful than Tony expected them to be. They have something, at least. They have a plan. They have a purpose. Find survivors, organize them, reestablish order. It’s not as simple as it sounds, not one bit, but it’s something.

Against his better judgment, despite all evidence that their odds are not good – actually, they might be the worst odds that there ever existed – Tony feels… happy, to seem them like this. To see them hopeful. To see them, wide-eyed and eager to fight, to see them happy to be in agreement of something, to be—

Together, and having something to rely on, a common purpose, a goal.

It doesn’t feel familiar, not really. Maybe Tony is too tired, or too scarred, or too anything, really, to truly feel at ease, but he’ll take this small dose of comfort if he can, if it’s not too selfish, because he needs this to remind himself that this isn’t pointless. That he has to go on because he still has a job to do. That these people are counting on him, and he cannot disappoint them again.

He reaches up towards his shoulder, and put his hands over Pepper’s and squeezes.

She squeezes back, comfortingly.

And Tony sighs in relief then, because he knows she’ll be with him on this, she will have his back.  

“What sort of samples you’ll need, Doctor Banner?” Tony asks, a little more confidently, turning to Bruce with a renewed sense of hope for possibilities.

Bruce falters a little, his eyes going unfocused, a nonsensical hum leaving his lips. “Huh… everything?” he replies, “I need number estimates of how much of the vegetation we lost, how much of the ashes have already gone up to the atmosphere, how much of it is in the water, soil samples of places that have already rained on—"

“Basically anything, got it.” Tony concludes. “I can give you access to FRIDAY and you can start by inputting some essential research parameters and that should save us some time. She can run some diagnoses while we’re away, even if her equipment is a little damaged from the loss of the network.”

“We should have brought some of Princess Shuri’s beads.” Bruce says, but it doesn’t sound like he’s talking to anyone in particular, just himself. “Or anything, really. Her equipment is still working, if we could use it—”

“She has been gone since after the battle, Bruce.” Natasha says, softly. “There’s nothing we can do. We have to wait for her to come back.”

“We might not have a choice.” Bruce raises his eyebrows, surprisingly assertive. “The truth is that if she can help us, we might be able to pull this off. To go on rescue missions and save the planet at the same time.”

Natasha presses her lips in a tight line, thinking. “I’ll try to find her. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

Tony has never met T’Challa’s sister, Princess Shuri, but he has heard a lot. She’s a genius, apparently; From what he’s heard, she is the one responsible for most, if not all, technology in Wakanda, which sounds incredible. Tony would have loved to meet her, but he always assumed he would never get the chance. At least Bruce got the chance, which is something. He’s glad she’s alive, from what he can gather. Even though, by their conversation, Tony assumes she has been missing, but on purpose.

Which Tony understands.

He doesn’t know how old princess Shuri is, but it doesn’t really matter in the end, because the fact is that she has just lost her brother, and who knows how many others. She is a princess, and many of her people have now also disappeared. Which also means that if Tony’s logic is correct, she is now, by all purposes, a queen.

Queen of a mourning nation, in a decaying world.

Tony does not blame her for disappearing. He really doesn’t.

He wants to open his mouth to ask – he has so many questions –, although he hesitates a bit, pondering over what words would be more sensible to ask more on the subject, but then—

The pounding in his head is getting louder and louder, his eyes are hurting so bad, he’s still aching all over, he’s hungry, he’s tired, and shit, he really thinks all this arguing and draining spikes of adrenaline might be getting too much for his old, poor body, and he needs to find some food quick and maybe some painkillers first, before he blacks out again without any notice. He’ll ask his questions on the way, if he still feels like it when they finally get there.

He doesn’t know how he’ll be feeling about the idea of bonding over the last years in five minutes from now. Hell, he barely knows how he feels about it right now.

Yeah, sure, he’d love to talk about the genius princess of Wakanda, but now it’s not the time, is it? And the very implications that they had been in Wakanda in the first place – that is a whole hornet nest that Tony won’t touch with a ten-foot pole right now. Maybe not ever.

He’ll ask his questions later.

Right now, they have no time.

“Before we go, does anyone want to grab a bite?” Tony jokingly says, getting up real, real slow, hoping his discomfort can pass off as arrogance or, at the very least, nonchalance. “We might still have food around. We can’t go overboard and eat everything before we bring people back here, but there might be enough for all of us to have something.”

And Nebula, who has been almost completely silent up until now, turns her gaze to him with sharp, cutting precision, as if she could feel Tony’s pain and could easily see past it, and unthinkingly says:

“You haven’t eaten in three days.” And she probably would have said something else, she would have made a point, but the damage is done, and everyone in the room snaps their heads back to him, their eyes wide.

“You what?” Rhodey asks, so incredulous he almost sounds accusing.

“It’s not a big deal, I’ll just eat something now.”

Rhodey’s eyes flash dangerously focused, deep concern etched into his features.  “How long has it been since you last slept?”

Tony sighs ruefully and admits, “A while.”

“You should rest.” Rogers says, kindly, and then he ruins it by allowing the ordering tone to bleed back into his voice as he says, “We can start moving tomorrow.”

Tony frowns at that, feeling a little unsettled.

Rhodey ribbing him about his habits? Fine. Normal routine, for them. Tony is used to it.

Rogers?

Rogers, who has been gone for years, Rogers, who Tony can’t even look straight in the eye without fidgeting now, acting like that?

Yeah. Tony is unsettled.

It’s not like he’s forgotten how Rogers is. He hasn’t. But something about his ease in slipping back into his role as the leader, as the one who says orders and expects to be obeyed without preamble, it makes something uneasy twist in Tony’s stomach, something that is not bitterness nor rage, but just as uncomfortable, wary and reluctant.

I mean, sure, he had let Tony make that final call about their plan – no, actually, they were all waiting for his input on it, because they knew that if someone was going to convince Bruce to be on board with going to the rescue missions first, it would be Tony, so—

It’s—

They aren’t fighting yet, which is great. It’s more than Tony thought it would be possible, a few months ago. Granted, Tony doesn’t want to fight anymore, he doesn’t even want to think about it anymore, much less now when he’s got bigger concerns, but he can’t stop himself from not liking that tone, that tone that he now associates with some bad things, with the memory of a time of willful ignorance and a lighter heart, that had come at a very high cost in the end. A thing that, to this day, Tony won’t allow himself to think if it was worth it or not.

Rogers isn’t wrong, and he knows that. Tony can feel the way his limbs are shaking from the strain and the pain behind his eyes is reaching a point where it’s becoming nearly unbearable, but is he serious? Steve Rogers, the poster child for being reckless, for completely disregarding any sort of normal physical or mental strain in order to fulfill his mission, Steve Rogers, is telling him to rest, when the world is on fire?

What the fuck is going on here?

“We don’t have time to rest.” Tony says, a little too harshly, a little too ready to pick up a fight if it proves necessary.

Rogers damn nearly startles, stepping back just a fraction, as if he’s surprised by Tony’s reaction. He blinks, once, and almost immediately his whole body goes stiff as marble again, and his voice comes out strained when he says:

“Tony—”

Steve.” Shockingly, it’s Natasha who says it, in a very dangerous warning tone, as she gets up and lays her hand on Roger’s forearm, fingers digging in, her gaze sharp as it bores into his when he whips his head to the side to look at her.

Tony would thank her if he didn’t know any better. Who knows what sort of creepy telepathic conversation they’re having right now. He doesn’t even know what Natasha is alerting him for. Is she trying to stop them from fighting? Well, that’s nice of her, but Tony doesn’t really care right now. He’ll fight Rogers if he has to, even if he is tired and he doesn’t want to, but he will, if Rogers continues to try and bench him when Tony is literally only alive because his work isn’t done yet.

(Why else would he be here?)

He needs to do this. He needs to act, he needs to help.

He can’t waste his life.

“I know we don’t have time.” Rogers says, a little softer, after Natasha has released his arm slowly, still watching him like a hawk. “But we can’t have you getting hurt while we’re trying to save other people.”

“I can handle a little pain.” Tony argues, gritting his teeth.

“I know you can.” Rogers says. “But we don’t need to risk your life too, not after everything.”

“And what will you do? Sit tight while I take a nap, read a magazine and wait until I heal fully before going out to save the world?”

Rogers’ silence is all the answer he needs.

“No, you won’t.” Tony sneers. “As soon as I leave this room, you’ll grab the jet and fly to the city, and leave me here.”

“We’d need to fly over the city and find the best starting point.” Rogers points out, lamely, although if Tony didn’t know any better, the confidence he uses in his voice might almost convince he knows what he’s talking about. “We would only scan the ground and come back.”

Bullshit.” Tony growls. “If you leave this Compound, I’m going too.”

Pepper’s hands grasp his arms anxiously, her voice calling his name in half-reprimand, half-desperation, but for the first time, Tony ignores her protest. He will not back down on this. He will not be left behind while they go on and risk their lives also being countless hours with no sleep and no sustenance. Tony knows he’s injured, but he doesn’t care. He just – He just fucking said they had to go out there together.

“Tony.” Rogers exhales, softly, after a silent beat. “We won’t leave without you. I promise.”

(What good are your promises now, Cap?)

“You know I can just put the armor on and—”

“We’ll rest here for tonight too.” Rogers interrupts calmly, his voice oddly placating. “We also haven’t slept in days. We’ll all rest, and tomorrow, we all leave together. I’m not going to divide us again. From now on, we stay together.”

And it’s so weird, so weird how earnest he sounds when he says that, like he truly believes it, like he’s that man from so many years before, the one who Tony still hadn’t realized had a dark side too, the one Tony had naively believed couldn’t lie, could be trusted.

“Tony.” Pepper interrupts their stare-down, running her hands softly through his hair, a sharp contrast to the firm, adamant tone in her words. “You can’t go out there while you’re still injured.”

“I won’t heal fast enough.” Tony argues back, shaking his head exasperatedly at her.

“But you need to heal enough.” She nearly commands. “You can’t put on a suit and go out there to lift buildings with your hands when you have a stomach wound. You’re going to kill yourself.

“I have to do this, Pep.” Tony mutters.

“I know.” She says, sadly. “But not today.”

Tony stares at her, pleadingly, because – because… Damn it, he can’t just stay here going nothing – They have to go. Doesn’t she know that, she knows that, she said it herself. They have to save the civilians.

Pepper stares back, and her eyes are kind but unyielding, the same fire Tony feels in himself when Rogers came too close, when he steeled everything inside himself to fight to defend his logic and get his way. If Tony insists on this, she’ll fight him, no hesitation, because she won’t allow him to go out there now that she knows this.

It’s that familiar argument.

The same old song and dance.

Tony can argue that this is a time-sensitive issue, Pepper will argue that if Tony goes out there like this, he’ll die.

And then—

(Tony will admit he doesn’t mind that. That he’ll do whatever he has to do.)

(And it always goes downhill from there.)

He lowers his head and closes his eyes, sighing, reminding himself not to shake his head or else he’ll deeply regret it, and Pepper knows, because her hands relax their grip into a mere comfort hold, even before Tony says:

“Your rooms are still in the same place.” Tony tells them, gesturing in the vague direction of the other figures in the room, only vaguely seeing them at the edge of his peripheral vision, ashamed of raising his head and looking at them in the eye. “You can all stay there for the night.”

He thinks he hears a noise, something akin to a sharp inhale, but he pretends he doesn’t hear it.

“Those of you who have no rooms,” he glances at Nebula. “Can pick any room you like from the west wing. They’re all available.”

“There’s room in the west wing, now?” Natasha asks, too casually, with only the appropriate hint of confusion for it to sound innocent, but with a heavy, blatant presence of curiosity under it.

“We did some remodeling.” Tony eyes her, making it very clear that yes, it was not a random decision, but no, he doesn’t want to talk about it, and she should just drop it.

She does. Good.

Now is not the time.

“I’ll get you something to eat.” Rhodey says, standing tall next to him, his voice giving no option to decline. “And you’re gonna eat it, and then you’re gonna sleep. And if you try to leave this building before us, I’m gonna disable your suit myself and you’ll be sitting here while we go out there and kick ass. You hear me?”

He smiles ruefully.

“I can’t promise anything, sour-patch.” Tony jokes, but his words are laced in apology and remorse.

Rhodey gives him a very pointed look, and Tony hands his head and nods, chastised, and only then, Rhodey’s posture relaxes a fraction.

“C’mon.” Rhodey says, throwing his arm around Tony’s shoulder, pulling him towards the kitchens with practiced ease, Pepper falling into step with them easily. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until you eat.”

“Or else what?” Tony arches an eyebrow, and Rhodey threateningly stares back, equally playful and ominous.

“It’ll be better for you if you don’t know.”

Tony lets himself be pulled away, pretending he can fall back with ease into the familiar warmth of the banter between him and his best friend, even as he’s feeling anxious and is so damned tired he can’t properly enjoy it; And tries very hard not to look back at the lounge, even as the stares at his retreating back seem to get harder and harder as he goes away; And only when they are finally around the corner and out of the sight of the others, Tony wonders if any of them were glaring not because of Tony’s poorly concealed injuries, but because they somehow noticed the little slip Rhodey made in his speech.

He doubts it.

But still.

He wonders.

(He hopes not.)

 

Tony’s room in the Compound is pristine.

It has been closed for a very long time, technically speaking, since it now only serves as a storage room that he rarely frequents and the only people who ever entered since he officially moved out was the cleaning staff. He hasn’t been sleeping here since he and Pepper got back together and he moved into his new place with her, somewhere small – or smaller, by his standards –, more homely, less… connected to the idea of life-risking missions and battlefields, and this bed has never really been used, just kept here in case of necessity, if someday, any emergency would force him to spend the night at the Compound and not back at home, in Pepper’s arms.

It had been his compromise. Part of it, anyway.

And he’d been glad to do so. Despite everything, he has wanted it, to have a home life with Pepper. A somewhat normal life. He had made peace with it.

And that hasn’t changed. When he opens the door and finds the huge bed untouched and cold, he realizes he doesn’t miss it.

(A lie.)

(Not the room, that’s not what he misses.)

(But he misses what he used to feel, when he was here.)

(He misses—)

But it was worth it. it was worth it, he told himself, if it meant he’d get to keep Pepper Potts. And maybe it was the time, truly, to make some changes in his superhero life. He had been planning for it, pulling strings and organizing backup plans; He had been on the cusp of succeeding, of finally reaching that perfect balance between what he needed and what Pepper needed, when it all came crashing down on him again.

There were times before, he remembers, where he tried to get her to understand. That he’d hoped, with all his strength and might, that she could once day see the world through his eyes, to understand exactly why he did what he did, and why he couldn’t stop, why, no matter how many suits he explodes or how many documents he signs, Iron Man is etched into him in a way he can’t ever remove, and even if he steps out, the lingering, quiet concern will always be there. Always at the corners. Always waiting to strike.

He had wished for that. For her to understand.

But he had never wished for it to be like this.

He had never wanted to see her shoulders slump as they walk towards the bedroom, to watch her shuffle by the bed awkwardly, as if the nervous energy inside her won’t let her sit still, despite how tired she obviously is, and to see her hesitate to sleep, like he once did, like he knows, so deeply, how it feels.

“Tony.” She whispers, raspy, but never follows with any other words.

She wants to say something, but she has nothing to say.

“Come here.” Tony slurs, opening her arms to her, and she walks closer with a bone-weary sigh and wraps her own arms around him, her head chin tucked neatly in his shoulder, her warm cheek against his neck; And her heartbeat to Tony’s chest.

It feels like relief, and it feels like deceit.

“Tomorrow.” She says, softly, but with a pause that indicates strongly that is not merely a comment, it’s a serious, deliberate request. “Can you please promise me you won’t put yourself into harm’s way at the first chance you get?”

“Pep—”

“Even if it’s to save someone.” She amends, firmly. “Even then. Promise me you won’t put yourself on the line if there’s any other way to do what you need to do.”

Like a flash, echoes of this conversation reverberate within the many corners of his memory, still feeling fresh and tender despite how old some of these memories are, how long they’ve been living inside him and repeating over and over like a broken record, an issue they can never get past, a pattern that is destined to be a stone in their way for as long as Tony fails to meet a middle ground between his instincts, and Pepper’s request.

He knows what she means. He does know. She’s not accusing him of anything…

(Not of anything that isn’t true.)

He recognizes that.

(But—)

“Okay.” Tony says, quietly. “I promise.”

And she hugs him tighter, and breathes deeply, and accepts this.

They lay down and curl around each other, unable to stand to be apart when so much has already stood in their way for the previous days, and they both fall asleep almost instantly; To a fitful, distraught sleep, the first of many in nights to come.

She accepts his answer.

Even if she knows, by precedent, that Tony’s promise usually turns out to be a lie.

Notes:

Before you can say "But Machi, is that it? This tiny piece of subjective conversation, that's what you mean by talking about it?", worry not: No, that's not it. There is more to come, my dear drama-loving friends. We'll go for the full meltdown, I promise, but unfortunately, this chapter had to be cut for word count reasons, because if you know me and my previous work, you know that this bastard does tend to get the best of me.

So, actually, let me ask you a question. Do you mind if the chapters are this long, between 9-11k? That seems to be the pattern I'm falling into this time around. Let me know if you find it too much - or if you're a monster like myself, that reads 50k chapters and doesn't give a shit. This is a very long and very mentally exhausting story, so I want to make this experience comfortable for you. Let me know what you think.

Also, if you've seen Captain Marvel, come scream about Carol with me on tumblr or twitter! And if you like my writing, please consider going to my twitter and checking out the pinned post there, it might be something you're interested in!

For anyone who might be freaking out about my posting schedule as we're getting closer to Endgame - I hope to bring at least another chapter before the movie launches, which I'll be seeing in the release date in my country, April 25. The next chapter is already in the works, with a big section already written, so it should come considerably faster than the previous ones. We'll continue to talk about Pepper and her influence in Tony's life and decisions, and her own development and story arc, now that she is, inescapably, part of the consequences of Tony's superhero side of life.

See you next time, folks. Once again, thank you for reading, and I'll see you soon :)

Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Notes:

(The people have spoken. Long chapters you want, long chapters you shall have ;))

Here is the thing, with consequences: If you don't see it, you never learn the lesson.

The problem with many of the MCU's unfinished business comes from this very negligence. It's easy to forget what consequences might've happened to all SHIELD agents who were suddenly exposed in CA:TWS, when all we can remember is a cool, self-assured speech that simply states that 'the world is safer now'. Hard to see the consequences of any sort of dangerous document that might pose a threat or not, when that document is forgotten in the next installment. Hard to gauge what is important, and what is not.

Consequences rarely disappear just because you're not looking at them. In fact, if CW has taught us anything, is that if you're not paying attention, the consequences will corner you in the worst possible time. One would think the Avengers would have learned by now, but canon really makes very hard to believe it.

So let me put it out there, to make sure it's very clear. Let me show you the consequences up close, so you can understand. First up: immediate consequences.

We'll talk about the long term ones later. Because there are some, believe me.

And consequences often come with hard choices to be made. The worst and the best dilemmas rely on choices. The crux of every superhero story is always the same: do you sacrifice yourself to save others, or no? Do you move, or do you stay still and watch it happen? Mind you, I'm not complaining about this - in fact, this is how hero stories start. By choosing to move, when all others freeze. But when you're already a hero, it's not really a matter of if, is it? It's not if you save the world. You're going to. The problem is... how?

This chapter is a rough one, friends. Be careful. If you're worried about that something might be triggering, check this symbol here ! for a preview before diving in.

Consequences. Choices. Priorities. What does that have to do with Pepper Potts?

Well. Everything.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The next morning, there is a little sunlight.

But there is no comfort in it, no smiles, and no relief.

Exhaustion lets Tony sleep for full ten hours, which is more than he ever expected, and for once he’s grateful that his mind and body were so worn out not even his worst nightmares could stir him during the night. But the morning is still gloom. When he wakes up, Pepper is already awake, sitting against the headboard and staring quietly at the darkened, foggy window, unmoving; And cold, bleak dread floods Tony so completely he freezes still, like a deer in headlights, and he wishes this was a nightmare, and wishes he could wake up from it and find the world still whole on the other side.

He knows, from the vacant look in her face, the stiff posture of her shoulders, that her night has not been as blissfully blank as his. Her gaze lost, her hand loosely wrapped around his, her long, delicate fingers sweeping soft caresses across his knuckles – it’s all distant, laced in muted unease, and it makes Tony’s chest hurt and his heart heavy, raw despair that Tony can recognize in a glance, and he wants to make it better, but he doesn’t know how.

His neck hurts like hell and his torso feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls, full of a weird, swollen sensation, and his eyes feel like they’re almost taped shut with the amount of effort he has to make to open them.

But nothing compares to the awful feeling of him squeezing her hand, and her taking almost a full minute to squeeze back.

“Honey. Hey.” He whispers, shaking her hand minutely, as much he can without moving it from its position on her lap. “Did you sleep?”

“Yeah.” Pepper exhales softly, her voice a little hoarse. “A little. I did.”

“How long have you been awake?” Did you have nightmares, is what he’s truly asking, but he has learned the hard way that this question cannot be asked with those words.

From personal experience.

Now he wishes he’d also learned how to deal with it properly. He never has. He dealt with his own nightmares and fears the same way he deals with any other problem, tinkering and trying unconventional options, trial and error, again and again, until he improves, until he finds a way out, until it works. And if it doesn’t, he just keeps doing it until it does. It doesn’t work as well with feelings at it does with machines. Tony knows how numbers behave, he knows their patterns and their strengths, so when a machine breaks, Tony knows exactly where to tweak to make it work again. But emotions are messy. They ever work that way. So when Tony tinkers, when Tony messes around with absurd options just so he can avoid the ones he doesn’t want to consider, when he does things other people would call madness, that’s his way of trying to find something that works. It’s him pushing the limits of the possibilities until he stumbles upon one that holds best.

But he knows that’s not normal. Hell, Pepper has said it to his face.

It’s not normal, Tony. Please, Tony, it’s not normal.

He’d known, and he didn’t listen.

He should have. He should have listened.

Because now it’s not him who needs it, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Pepper looks at him with her eyes glossy, a little wet, as if some emotion is bubbling inside her low and constant, verging on overwhelming, threatening to spill over at any time, and she’s keeping it down by sheer will. Her hold on his hand turns soft and caring, but her fingers are cold and clammy. In the crease of her brows, Tony sees the worry and the pain she’s hiding behind the small smile that pulls at the corner of her lips, the familiar strength of masking her sorrow with efficiency and a comforting posture, with the instinct of making herself strong to endure whatever hardship is threatening to push her down.

She doesn’t answer his question. Not really.

“It’s ok. I’m fine.” Is what she says, and Tony knows it’s a lie.

A lie he recognizes well. A lie he so deeply empathizes with that it echoes in his gut.

Tony doesn’t want her to hurt. Pepper – Pepper is the light of his life, she’s the reason why he struggled so hard to be functional and not lose himself to the call of the armor and of the fight, to the siren song of letting himself go to waste with nothing but revenge and mindless righteousness in his brain. She’s his ground, she’s his safe harbor, and to see her suffer hurts. He doesn’t want her to feel as he did. He doesn’t want her to not be able to sleep, not be able to rest, not be able to think.

He remembers the nights during the first months after the wormhole, the constant sizzling of anxiety in his veins, the flashing, turbulent images exploding behind his eyelids every time he dared to close his eyes – the night when Pepper finally saw him, at his most vulnerable, and they both had been volatile and close to the point of combustion, emotionally, and then literally, and it was so easy to be swept away by the illusion of comfort that a clean slate can give, after everything. His nightmares… His PTSD is the reason why he started to try finding a middle ground between them, the reason why he slowly but surely tried to cut himself off the superhero business, even if ineffectively, he tried because he didn’t want to cause this to her.

Tony had been living two separate lives because this was the only way he could’ve kept Pepper safe. He realized that, after Killian. Pepper couldn’t be a consequence to his own addictions and vices, to his work and the insatiable, inescapable temptation of the skies and the adrenaline. It took work, it took so many fights and so much heartache, but he had almost done it. He had almost made himself normal again, almost made it back to the man he was before Extremis, before the wormhole, before he couldn’t sleep.

She hadn’t known, then, how to help him. To be honest, Tony doesn’t even know if he can be helped by any normal methods.

But the idea of it was tempting enough, so tempting, that he couldn’t quit. That’s all it takes, sometimes; Tony needs to see the big picture, he needs to see the future he so desperately wants, to feel it close but just outside his reach, so something in him ignites and bursts into flame, and pushes him forward. And that had been Pepper. For him, she had been it. The idea of finally reaching a point where they both met in the middle, where he finally reached the balance between his mission and his love, that was the goal Tony had always been trying to reach.

But this is how Tony works.

How can he help her get through this? When he still doesn’t know to work it out fully himself? If him being here and holding her hand is not enough, what can he do?

“Do you want to talk?” He asks, as kindly as he can. “About what happened? Out there?”

“I don’t know.” Pepper admits, sniffing discretely, but still keeping the tight smile on her face. “It’s been a lot, Tony. It’s – It’s difficult.”

“I know, honey.” Tony admits sorrowfully. “I just… I want to help you.”

Pepper looks at him, her eyes gleaming with emotion, and Tony can’t help but amend, his own throat constricting, “I want you to know I’m here for you.”

“I know.” Pepper replies. “Thank you.”

Overwhelmed, Tony pushes himself up by his elbows, even if it stings on his abdomen, and finds a position with enough stability so he can sit up without removing his hand from hers for as long as he can. But it’s inevitable. As soon as he can lean against the headboard as well, he opens his arms and she falls into him, they both drawn against the hold of one another, and she fits her head against his shoulder and sighs in a tight, shuddering breath, enveloping him in a careful hug, and he feels the tension is her from the way her arms tighten and flex even as they stay gentle around him, the twitch in her muscles, the anxiety that brews silently within.

He wants to be here forever. He wants the world to disappear, just for a while, just so he can lay here next to her and let her take whatever comfort she can take from him, from having a warm, solid body laying next to her own, to have her hand held, to have someone else in the room to remind herself that she is not alone. Sometimes that helps. Tony can count in one hand the number of times he has ever seen her this vulnerable, to melt in his arms not out of affection but of fear, and he hates that he has one more to add to the list. And now, they no longer have the luxury of a pause to breathe or the soothing voice of a therapist to help her unravel the irrational things her brain might be telling her after experiencing a traumatic event, which Tone knew she’d done, despite the fact he never did.

Maybe that’s all he can do for her. To sit here and hold her, as she holds him.

And hope they won’t fall apart.

“I’m going with you out there today, Tony.” Pepper unexpectedly says, and Tony startles, both by the surprise of her voice breaking the silence and the meaning of her words.

“What?” He croaks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I just said.” Pepper insists. “I’m not sitting here while you go out there and risk your life. I can help. So, I’m going too.”

“Pep. Honey.” Tony fumbles, confused. “You can’t—”

“You made me an armor, Tony.” Pepper argues. “Isn’t that what that was? The armor that came for me in the hospital? An armor, for me.”

Well, it was—

It wasn’t meant for that.

It was just… That had just been Tony, being paranoid and overprotective.

She was never meant to use it as he did.

“It was…” He falters. “It was just a safety measure. I know how you feel about the armor. I know you don’t…”

“I have nothing against the armor.” Pepper shakes her head, backing away from the embrace, and Tony immediately feels cold without her, even if she’s only far enough to look into his eyes. “It’s what you do when you wear it that worries me.”

“I save people.”

“Yeah.” Pepper says, as gently as she can. “I know. And you also put yourself at risk, every single time.”

Tony doesn’t know how to respond. It feels like this is eerily similar to all their previous arguments about this, but not. This is not a fight. Pepper is simply… She’s just saying it, like a reluctant truth, like an old wound that sometimes still feels tender. Tony doesn’t know if she should try to explain himself, although he doesn’t know what difference it would make, because he has done it so many times before, or if he should just stay silent and don’t pretend she’s saying anything but the truth. This is not a fight. So maybe he shouldn’t fight it.

(But—)

“I can use the armor.” Pepper assures him. “I’m going to use it, and I’m going with you. I can help. I’ve been out there, I know what happened. I can’t sit here and do nothing while you guys are out there.”

“Are you sure?” he insists.

“Not like I haven’t worn it before.” Pepper huffs out a laugh, a bit hollow, and the smile she gives him has an edge of old pain that stings on his chest.

“Not to a fight.” Tony frowns morosely. “It still can be dangerous.”

“It’s not a fight.” Pepper sadly replies. “It’s a rescue. We have to rescue the people out there, Tony. All of us.”

He understands where she’s coming from. Past his worry, his screaming, almost overbearing instinct to refuse and keep her where he thinks she’ll be safe, he gets it. Both Tony and Pepper are fixers, they ache for purpose when they are left idle, and they can’t stand the idea of not helping when they can. And they need all the hands they can get. Tony reacted so viciously against the idea of being left behind while the others flew back to the city, what argument could he have against Pepper following them? Pepper, who Tony knows can hold her own, better than he can sometimes, Pepper, who will never forgive herself for standing still when she could step forward and help.

He can’t fight her on this. Not when they are the same.

“Okay.” Tony says, breathlessly. “We do this together.”

Pepper smiles, and holds his hands, and Tony, forever the hopeless dreamer, always the fool who wishes for far too much, dares to think:

Maybe this is it.

Maybe this is their common ground. Such a high cost to pay to finally reach it, a price that’s not worth it, a disaster so great that it drains away any elation he could have felt in this moment; A common ground achieved not by finally reaching a complete, unconditional agreement, but a defeat, a necessity of yielding in sake of survival, of finally, finally, seeing the world through each other’s eyes, only to realize the world is crumbling.

He would have gladly spent the rest of his life fighting her if it meant this hadn’t happened like this.

But maybe this is truly it. Their middle.

He is too hurt to feel glad about it.

 

They meet the others in the kitchen.

By the others, he means everyone, because apparently, they’ve all been up for a long time, if they even slept in the first place. But it looks like they’ve eaten, at least. They look surprisingly resolute and steady, their bodies still tired and slumped wherever they sit, their formation still wobbly, but their eyes steely with resolve and determination; And it’s equally exhausting and refreshing to see, stirring heartstrings Tony hadn’t realized he still had left inside him, an old, rusty sense of familiarity, that he now feels he has no right to keep.

It’s easier, then, to focus on Nebula. Selfishly, he thinks the awkwardness between her and the others helps. He’s not grateful for it, but when he sees her sitting a little further away from the others, with the raccoon, Rocket, by her side, her eyes less intense but no less alert, his mind goes quiet in that turbulent place where all his doubts lie, where the creeping feeling of wariness slithers up his spine like a snake, to give voice to a softer voice, to a new, kind of fragile worry, to his ever-present desire to fix—

To help, to forget to be helpless.

Having her here as a reminder of how this is different, this is not the same, that he can’t focus on the past because they are dealing with the future now, and it helps. To see her in front of him, to see Rhodey, to have Pepper’s hand in his, it’s a reminder that he still has anchors. That despite what he feels, the world has not yet swallowed him whole.

Yet.

That’s what makes him walk into the room with his back straight, with as much composure and calm as he can, even though his chest still feels like it weighs a ton. It’s not a matter of dignity, not really. It’s not even him putting up his guards, although he feels like he should, because lately, he feels like he’s been walking around with his chest burst wide open, with his beating heart exposed, to bruise and to scar, to hurt. But it isn’t that.

Tony walks in with his head up high because they are going out there and saving people, and that is all that matters. He’s going to push down his worries and his hurt and he’ll do his job, he’ll save this world, no matter the cost, because this is not about him. Whatever unease he feels when he walks into that room, whatever gap he can still feel, wide and ominous, between himself and those on the other side, this is not about him, his squabble with his former teammates can wait until they have stopped the world from collapsing into itself to bother him over petty things.

He can do this and still keep himself composed. He has to.

He is an Avenger.

He has bigger problems to be scared to walk into a room with people he knows he can take down.

(If he wants to.)

(If he needs to.)

(Which he won’t.)

(He won’t.)

Thor is actually the first one to notice Tony and Pepper approaching because he’s sitting right across from the door. His eyes snap wide and alert when he sees movement, and they all follow his suit, so by the time Tony manages to get close enough to murmur a hey to them, they are all watching him approach the same way one watches a very rare, easily spooked animal, with fascination and careful movements, and Tony, in some other life, might have felt insulted.

But it’s hard to feel insulted by it now.

I mean, what kind of argument does he have against that?

They are all so out of touch with what means to have normal reactions or a normal life. What was he expecting other than awkward, heavy, stifling silence, with the history between them?

Tony ignores them. It’s the only reaction he can think to have.

The one who looks worse for wear, actually, is Bruce. The others look fine, as far as you can call them that, but Bruce is in a whole entire level of distraught before Tony. He sits between Thor and Natasha, his hands wrapped around a mug, fingers drumming anxiously around the ceramic, body hunched – and his eyes are haunted, wide and unfocused, with huge purple bags underneath, and a pale complexion, and to lock gazes with him is scary, because…. Because that’s what it is.

Bruce is scared. And then, Tony feels immensely, overwhelmingly guilty.

“Did you manage to sleep?” Tony asks in the general direction of the room, to all of them, and they all give varying uneasy nods, eyes skirting away – even Nebula and the raccoon, when Tony shoots them a glance a little more intense, worry burning in his guts. Tony believes some of them. Some, not all.

Pepper squeezes his hand, a silent call, and when they trade looks, she discretely points at Bruce for him, just as perceptive, and Tony takes her sign as support, and turns back to the kitchen.

“Before we go, I need your help, Brucie.” Tony says, his voice extremely casual, which is good, because as soon as Tony says his name, Bruce damn near startles. “I need you to come with me down to the med bay.”

Tony doesn’t actually need Bruce’s help, but he’ll say he does, if that takes Bruce out of that room for a couple minutes. He doesn’t look close to going green, but if he is going green, Tony would like to avoid it. And maybe more than anyone else in this room, maybe even more than Rhodey, Bruce is neutral ground, he is the only voice Tony will stand to hear with any composure, until the raw, vulnerable feeling sleep left lingering behind, the hold of Pepper’s hand still searing in his own, finally gives a little, and lets him breathe like his chest isn't caving in on itself.

So, no, Tony doesn’t actually need him.

But Bruce is his friend.

“Me?” Bruce raises his eyebrows.

“Who else?” Tony shrugs exasperatedly in his direction. “C’mon. Help me stitching this out, would you?”

“Are you hurt?” Nebula interjects, worriedly, her face distorting to something too similar to a frown.

“Not any more than I was yesterday.” Tony assures her softly. “But we can fix that. If Bruce comes down to the bay with me?”

“What do you need me for?” Bruce asks raggedly, as he gets up from his spot and walks up to Tony stiffly, and Tony is suddenly very aware of the fact that all the others are staring at them, listening in without even attempting to disguise it. Although, Tony ruefully thinks, what’s the point in trying?

“We brought some of Dr. Cho’s equipment with us when we moved here.” Tony answers, although he doubts anyone but him remembers it. He had only remembered it this morning, after all. “The synthetic tissue cradle is somewhere around here. I’m gonna close this wound and I’ll be good as new.”

“Cho.” Bruce exhales. “Is she alive?”

“We don’t know yet.” Tony admits. “FRIDAY is tracking her.”

“If you couldn’t find her yet—”

“It’s still running.” Tony interrupts. “Let’s not jump into conclusions, okay? She could be out there. As long as we’re looking, let’s keep our hopes up.”

Bruce looks like he wants to argue, but he shakes his head forcefully, trying to dispel dark thoughts, and nods firmly, injecting his voice with strength. “You’re right. It’s true, you’re right.”

Tony had almost forgotten what it’s like, to have Bruce around. He missed terribly. Bruce is such a good man, a brilliant mind who has been dealt a tough hand, with the lines on where he refuses to be diminished and where he refuses to be uplifted so tangled together it looks like a mess of exposed wires, that has to be dealt with calmly, with ease and respect, or else it falls apart. Sounds terrifying, for a guy who has to control the Hulk, but’s it’s really not. It’s so… It’s so genuine, so comfortingly refreshing, no second intentions, no hidden reasons. Transparency.

Tony has missed Bruce.

It’s one of the few people Tony misses without guilt.

“Pep, why don’t you go eat something?” Tony suggests gently, throwing her a quick look.

Pepper, of course, recognizes Tony’s word for what they really are, a request for some private time with Bruce, but she still hesitates a little, her brows furrowed slightly. “You need to eat something too.”

“Save something for me, alright?” Tony squeezes her hand, tempted to raise it to his lips and give it a kiss, but the weight of the stares on them stops him from doing it. “I’ll be right back.”

Pepper nods slowly, squeezing his hand back, but she lets him go, trusting, and Tony draws in a huge, long breath, even if it stings on his ribs; and the cold air flooding in his lungs keeps him clear-headed, keep his awake, keeps him focused.

Tony and Bruce walk out quietly, with the weight of the stares burning behind them, heads dropped close in hushed conversation as they cross the corridors down to the medical bay. Or rather – Tony walks to the medical bay, encouraging Bruce to come along, and Bruce follows him a little hesitantly, unaware of how to navigate through the building with the confidence of someone who knows the place.

It’s hard to remember that Bruce never actually had the chance to know the Compound. That it really has been that long since they last been together.

(Only another reminder of how much time they’ve missed.)

“Are you guys okay?” Bruce suddenly asks, confusing Tony. At his expression, Bruce sneaks a glance behind him, even if they have already turned a corner and the kitchen can no longer be seen. “You and Pepper. I thought…?”

Tony suddenly realizes that this is yet another thing Bruce has missed. Bruce had gone away right after they had destroyed Ultron – Tony and Pepper had been on a break then. One of many, Tony bleakly remembers.

His confusion makes sense, then.

(But then again.)

(Tony wouldn’t blame him for being confused even if he had been present.)

Tony doesn’t know the answer to that himself. “As well as we can be.”

“I thought you guys were having a…” He flails, making a weird, exasperated expression, and Tony knows what he means, and decides to spare him the struggle.

“We worked It out.” He cryptically answers, unwilling to reminisce on the old conflicts of his relationship now, or ever, not if he has any say in it, because he knows they won’t understand.

“Tony, listen.” Bruce insists, putting his hand across Tony’s chest to make him stop walking, gently, barely a brush of fingers against his torso, a trickle of familiarity against his wounded stomach. “If you wanna wait—”

“We can’t wait, Bruce, you know that.”

“Did you even sleep last night?” Bruce prods, disbelieving.

Tony, irrationally, kind of takes offense to that, a little. “As a matter of fact, I did. Pepper can confirm it.”

The worry in Bruce’s eyes is so clear and tangible, nearly like a physical touch, and Tony’s chest aches with how much emotion the proof of Bruce’s care for him can reach, how much he wishes he could accept it easily and let himself bask in the comfort of knowing that Bruce wants to help, but he can’t. Tony is holding himself upright by pure will, by chanting to himself aloud, blaring reminder that he has a mission, and if he lets himself be vulnerable, he doesn’t know what will happen to him.

“You were gone for days, Tony. In space. We didn’t know— We were worried.

Tony ducks his head down, hasting forward when they finally reach the med bay, and he pretends not to see Bruce following him with anxious strides and anticipatory stares as he punches in the entrance code, because his throat is closing up with words that are too big to fit his mouth, too heavy, too knowing, because there’s no way he can say I’m sorry and Thank you and Don’t in the same breath.

So he doesn’t.

He steps inside and Bruce follows, and the awkwardness of his silence compels Bruce to drop it for a moment, and they both get to work of gearing up the machine and getting some supplies in tense, fragile quiet. It’s not fair to Bruce, making him uncomfortable to stop him from insisting on his questioning, but what can Tony do? What can he possibly say? That he’s sorry he worried them? He didn’t mean to. He went out there to try and save the world, and they all know that there’s always a chance he won’t come back. He didn’t even know if he would make it back. It’s the burden of their occupation. And even if they were worried, which still makes Tony’s heart squeeze painfully, like a fist going around it and holding so tight onto it that it nearly stops beating, he cannot dwell in it.

Are you okay? We were worried.

It’s an invitation to be open. To be vulnerable. To share his burdens.

Tony won’t.

This is his burden to carry.

Tony pulls the regeneration machine closer to the bed while Bruce gathers some antiseptic, needles, and the activation components to the table beside it, and he does; Suddenly, they are together in the same space again, and Tony makes the mistake of looking Bruce right in the eyes – and in them, the nervousness isn’t gone at all, and the proximity and the eye contact make Bruce bold again, gives him strength, and before Tony can find a distraction, he is cornered.

“Look.” Bruce starts. “What happened to you out there—”

“Now it’s not— It’s not the time to talk about it, alright?”  Tony gently asks, but it doesn’t have enough strength to stop Bruce from continuing.

“What we saw in Wakanda, Tony…”

“I thought I said we weren’t talking about it yet, but—” Tony sarcastically interrupts, a little louder this time, and Bruce still completely ignores him.

“It was insane.” Bruce exhales, his eyes wide and a little crazed, lost in memory, even as he helps Tony up the bed and starts to remove his bandages. “His army. Did you see him?”

“I did.” Tony holds up his arms, to allow Bruce access to his wound. “How do you think I got stabbed?”

“You got stabbed?” Bruce exclaims, gawking at his stomach. “Is that what your wound is?

“Doesn’t matter, you’ll fix me up in no time.” Tony waves off, but then exhales heavily. “But yeah. I saw him.”

“We thought—” Bruce stutters. “We thought he had killed you.”

Tony stays silent.

(He had thought Thanos had killed him too.)

He lays down and Bruce sets up the machine, and the cold of the bed against his naked chest makes Tony shiver, the hairs on his forearms standing up with a prickly sensation, his muscles tense. The acute awareness of it is the only thing that stops him from blurting out something he will regret, so he welcomes it, and he lays his head down and breathes in deeply, his thoughts in turmoil, and watching Bruce the only thing he has available to distract him from the temptation of thinking about it.

About when he almost died, and then, he didn’t.

The sweep of the glowing ray of the regeneration machine feels like nothing at all on his wound. Bruce had to cut off his stitches, as carefully as he could, and the tug on his skin as he did so had more sensation to it than the direct action of Dr. Cho’s machine, just as she promised once. Bruce holds Tony down with a careful, merely mindful hand, to prevent him from slipping into an odd angle, and the machine works making almost no sound at all, gentle, and as Bruce watches it, with the soft blue glow of it illuminating his face, Tony watches Bruce.

“He showed up with the Time Stone and you were gone.” Bruce murmurs, when he feels he’ s being watched. “And even if he hadn’t killed you, when he snapped his fingers there was a fifty percent chance…”

“I’m here.” Tony interrupts, uncomfortable. “Okay? Doesn’t matter. I’m here.”

“We tried to stop him.” Bruce tells him frantically. “We destroyed the Stone.”

Tony’s brows shoot up all the way to his hairline. “What?”

“Vision figured it out. He said that if we exposed the Stone to something as strong as itself, we could destroy it.” He pauses, heavily. “So he asked Wanda to do it.”

Tony’s body flinches violently, and quickly, he’s grateful that Bruce is holding him in place, or else he would have jostled out of the position under the bright light of the regenerator and completely messed the procedure. But that also means that Bruce felt him flinch, and that is twice as mortifying, if not more.

Bruce looks down at him with something akin to muted pity in his eyes, a mellow, sad sympathy; And Tony realizes that despite being away for the past two years, there is understanding of Tony’s reaction in his gaze. Knowing. Bruce must have realized, somewhere during the small time he and the others had been reunited after two whole years, even if he barely spend any time at all with Vision and Wanda compared to them, what that request must have meant.

Which is…

It’s—

Overwhelming.

Not that Tony had seen it much, with his own eyes – but Tony thinks he knows more than most. Because he had been there. He had been… He had been back at the Compound when Vision started to roam the hallways aimlessly, the books he found so interesting no longer hold his attention, to find him in the kitchen, staring at nothing, looking frighteningly human and not human at the same time.

Tony had known, and even if he never understood, he never stopped it. Why… Why would he? What sort of moral ground did he have to stop Vision from chasing the company of the person he cared for? Perhaps even loved, if… if he ever figured out if he was capable of that? Tony didn’t know for sure. He hadn’t dared to ask. It was not his place. Tony still remembers coming into the compound and seeing the destruction left behind, the lounge in disarray, the hole on the floor, and that part of him that still ached with the absence of JARVIS, the one that’s too attached to his creations and considers them their children, even Vision, even if he won’t admit out loud, that part had cried in echoing despair, in recognition of the hurt, and in outrage that screamed Why?

(Why would you miss someone who hurt you?)

(How can you be so naïve?)

(Don’t you know what it does to you?)

At least, Tony had thought he had recognized it.

Until Vision asked him to use the tracker for the radiation signature of the Infinity Stones.

Tony had known immediately what that meant.

No one else knows when Vision started to disappear from the Compound. No one else but Tony. No one else knows that Vision asked for his permission to use the tracker in order to search for Wanda’s energy signatures, no one knows that Vision sometimes was gone for days, maybe an entire week, until he came back, looking more and more like it killed him every time. No one. Just Tony. And Tony had watched while pretending not to, turning his head, very emphatically making it not his business, because watching to closely meant more than admitting he was going against the thing he was fighting for every day – it meant admitting something Tony already knew, but wasn’t ready to think about, because he doesn’t like what it says about Vision, about their agreement, and about himself.

(Vision is stronger than him. Was.)

(It’s just how it is.)

(Like all children, he had been stronger than his father.)

(I couldn’t.)

(I just—)

(I couldn’t.)

“Did she?” Tony asks, in a breathless whisper.

Bruce nods in jerky motions, sorrowful, and Tony’s heart plummets.

Fuck.

Wanda.

He doesn’t—

Shit.

(But the pieces don’t fit, do they?)

(After all—)

(The son of a bitch still won.)

“She destroyed it, but—" Bruce coughs, the words getting choked up in his throat, too big to be uttered, too painful. “He had the Time Stone. He turned back time and made it whole again.”

Tony’s eyes widen, a terrible, heartbreaking recognition dawning on him, brutal in its wake, and he can only lay there, frozen, as the machine makes one tiny sound to indicate it has completed its job and Bruce occupies himself by pulling it away, getting his hands busy to distract himself, not noticing that Tony can’t move.

“You were right.” Bruce frowns, tightly, his mouth twisted in ugly, mournful expression, defeat etched in his face – unaware of the storm that screams inside Tony’s chest. “It was his best chance against us.” 

The ringing in Tony’s ears is loud, shrill and hysterical, his heart beats fast and painful, like it’s pulling too tight, nearly imploding inside his ribcage.

He was right.

No.

Damn it, no.

No.

“I’m sorry.” The words tumble out of Tony’s mouth, and he can’t take them back, he can’t, he’s already halfway through a speech he has no strength to handle, so he quickly turns it into something else, because he can’t even begin to express what he feels, he can’t. “I’m sorry I couldn’t support you yesterday. I understand why you’re worried, I really do. Probably better than everyone else. But I couldn’t—"

Bruce blinks confusedly for a second, not following Tony’s abrupt turn of the subject matter, until he realizes Tony is talking about the discussion of the day before, and how Tony, the only person who could agree with Bruce on his side of the debate, had left him hanging for the other option.

“No, I get it.” Bruce reassures after a beat, even if his tone is still dripping in sadness. “Short-term, it makes more sense to prioritize rescue missions. I get it, I do. It’s just… I looked through some old papers.” He shivers. “And it doesn’t look good, Tony. It’s bad.”

Tony gets up slowly, distantly realizing his wound now feels pleasantly numb, no longer stinging or pulling sharply at the edges, but he barely looks down at it as he asks, his eyes still locked on Bruce, “How bad?”

“I don’t know how much ash we have out there. I don’t know how much each individual… left behind, when he snapped his fingers. Maybe a hundred? Two? Less, more? We don’t know.” Bruce shrugs defensively. “What about the trees and the animals? We have no way of calculating those. Worst case scenario, we might be talking over one hundred tons of ash. Maybe more.

He starts to wrap Tony up again, just in case, but Tony can see his eyes are distant. His hands are cold.

“It wasn’t localized, like a bomb, it was all over the world. That means it doesn’t take the same time to spread. It takes less.” Bruce explains. “If it keeps going up at the rate that it is right now, we might only have sunlight for a couple of hours each day, and the exposure might even decrease over time.”

“People can survive that.” Tony reminds him, undeterred. “People live in places where they don’t see the sun for more than an hour and they survive, Bruce.”

“They aren’t breathing hyper polluted air, Tony.” Bruce argues back. “And what about the food? Water?”

“There are ways.” Tony affirms. “We can fix this, we just need the numbers. If we get enough people maintaining the system like it used to be, water, power, we can work on cleaning the air before it shuts us down completely. Nature does it all the time, right? It’s not her first time. We’re just gonna give her a push. Our species survived the Ice Age, Bruce, we can do this. We have to.”

“I hope you’re right.” Bruce murmurs, as he stands back up, and he looks Tony straight in the eye – and his words, suddenly, seem like a plea.

“Yeah.” Tony mumbles to himself.

So do I.

 

When they go back to the kitchen, they walk quietly. They are both lost in deep thoughts, concerns and doubts poorly concealed beneath the fronts of strength they put forward in favor of their mission; and maybe that’s why no one hears them coming closer, not until they are already back at the kitchen, and they halt right by the door, suddenly alert.

They find the others in a tense, suffocating quiet, a strained stillness, shoulders hunched in defensiveness and aggression, the all too familiar stench of animosity clouding the room the same way the darkness swallows the world outside.

Oh God. What happened?

Rhodey, Pepper, Natasha, and Rogers, all of them are standing up and stiff in their places, and Tony almost panics before they notice him and Bruce on the doorway, immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusions, when he realizes they aren’t scared, they’re tense.

“Tony.” Rhodey calls, urgently, but no words follow up to his call. But in his tone, Tony hears a thousand things.

Tony, did you know about this?

Tony, you can’t be serious.

Tony, are you sure?

Tony.

Tony!

Completely at lost, Tony turns to Pepper – and Pepper’s gaze is steely, hard, unyielding stone, her teeth shut together in a false composure, indignant, and Tony’s brain immediately goes—

Oh.

Shit.

She told them. She told them, and he wasn’t in the room.

Shit. Shit, shit.

“Tony.” Natasha calls, her tone carefully blank, no judgement, but no understanding. “Did you guys talk about this?”

Bruce frowns at him deeply, terribly confused, and Tony steps forward and raises his hands in a placating gesture. “We did, but – Listen, okay?”

“Do you agree?” Again, overly sterile, not a single hint of any emotion beneath.

Still, it’s a loaded question. It’s such a loaded question. They all look at him and Tony has a terrible déjà vu of the previous day, of their stares and their expectations, of the weight of his words, of his choice.

This morning, Pepper decided she wants to fight. No – Not fight, it’s not a fight, but she wants to put on the suit and go out there with them, she wants to help, in whatever way she can. And Tony understood.

And Tony agreed.

“Yes.” He says, in a deep exhale. “I do.”

Rhodey makes a weird noise, tight and troubled, shifting in place, but he doesn’t argue. He simply breathes in, stares, and settles. And for Rhodey, that is that.

For the others, not so much.

“Stark, with all due respect,” Thor politely says, all soft, disheartened words. “Ms. Potts has no training. She’s not a warrior.”

“Pepper.” Rogers calls back her attention, and all of them turn, Pepper’s head snapping to him sharply, no concession or surrender in her posture or her eyes. Rogers probably makes it worse, with his tone, low and sad, which he probably thinks that comes off as sympathetic, but for a woman like Pepper, it only sounds condescending. “We can’t risk your life for the sake of a mission. We can’t.”

“And why exactly do you think you need to worry about me?” Pepper snaps back, indignant. “I am more than capable of operating the armor. Do you worry about Tony when he’s fighting in it?”

(Oh, Red Alert.)

(Red Alert.)

(This conversation has to stop, now.)

Roger’s face twists something ugly, like it hurts him, and he takes long enough to answer that he gets easily interrupted.

“Wait, I’m confused. The armor?” Bruce asks.

Tony sighs, tired, all of a sudden feeling like his soul is being sucked out of him, like the mere negative feeling of the room hits him like a physical blow, and he says, knowing that what will follow will not make it better. “She wants to go out there with us. In an armor, like me.”

Bruce’s eyes go wide as saucers. “Tony—”

“She has an armor of her own.” He explains.

“What?” Bruce stammers, and his confusion echoes everyone else’s. “Since when?”

“I made one for her.” Which is not a lie, but also doesn’t exactly answers Bruce’s question; And Tony thinks it’s for the best, because although he knows Pepper is more than capable of using it, and she will have access to FRIDAY just like Tony has, the armor had been a secret until a few hours ago, because Pepper had never been supposed to actually have the chance to use it.

“Tony, you can’t take Pepper to a fight. She’s a civilian.”

“I am right here.” Pepper reminds him sharply, insulted for being talked over, and Bruce immediately steps back and apologizes, but his eyes still express his disapproval and doubt so clearly that he could be saying it out loud.  

“It’s not a fight, it’s a rescue.” Tony repeats the words echoing in his mind, hoping they will sound more convincing if he says them for them to hear, if he repeats them enough so they’ll feel true, and his heart will stop beating a troubled, worried tattoo against his cold sternum, threatening to crack his ribs with the sheer force of its pulse. “Listen. I’m not… I’m not gonna do that to her. I’m not gonna disagree, because she’s got a point. She won’t stand staying behind while we’re out there. And she can help. She can. You all know that.”

Maybe it’s his cracking voice, or the frantic way he widens his eyes, or the defensiveness in his rigid shoulders – Bruce looks at him for a long second, and Tony stares back, and it’s awkward, and tense, and when no one finds any words to say, Pepper steps forward:

“I’ve been in New York for the past three days. I know what happened. I saw it.” She fiercely reminds them, and if there’s despair edging at the corner of her words, if there’s a wetness that drips beneath her tone, that makes her sound like she’s not as impenetrable as she looks – well, no one calls her on it. “People are scared out there, and I’m not going to sit here and wait, knowing what’s going on.”

The others look troubled, trading glances, and Tony understands their hesitation and is furious and is saddened by it at the same time, all at once, and he can’t find a way to properly express it without sounding like a maniac, so he doesn’t. He just stands there as watches as they all consider this nervously, and hopes with all his might they’ll just agree and drop it, because if they argue, Tony knows he’ll say things he will regret.

(Not the first time they’d include someone on the team on a whim.)

(Why is this different?)

“Are you sure about this?” Rogers asks, his eyes so damned intense it hurts to look at him. “It might be dangerous.”

“Yes, we’re sure.” Pepper replies, immediately.

And then, they turn to Tony.

It’s exhausting. It’s always, always exhausting.

Tony nods, and his neck feels like a rusty hinge, aching and rigid. “The armor’s safe. She’ll be fine.”

“Does the armor fit her?” Rhodey suddenly asks. “What armor we’re talking about here, exactly?”

“She has one of her own, I just said that.” Tony reminds him.

“Well, I’ve never seen it, so I’m asking what kind of armor it is.” Rhodey insists, considering Tony with a reproachful glare, like the exasperated, demanding older brother he is. “Where is it?”

Suddenly, without prompting, the sound of a rapidly approaching repulsor blast makes them all turn to the door, and in no more than a second, the 1-R armor comes flying quickly towards them, making almost all of them jump back in alert, surprised.

Tony doesn’t. And, surprisingly, Pepper doesn’t. She stands there, watchful, as the large, shiny armor lowers itself to the floor and opens up to her, like a flower, a strange mixture of smooth movement and hard metal, coming closer to wrap itself around her like a cocoon, and Pepper lets it, raising her arms with no question and stepping back into the foothold the support plates give her – and right there, before their eyes, Pepper embraces the armor, just as the armor embraces her back, and Tony’s eyes suddenly feel too wet, too hot, too blurry for comfort.

It’s the first time he’s ever seen her like that. Stepping into the armor, at her own will. The closest thing to this he’s ever had was when she shoved her hand into the gauntlet of his broken suit to fire at Aldrich Killian, to save his life, and to this day, is one of Tony’s most powerful memories, one he guards fondly, although he’ll never admit it, because it makes him feel… something when he sees her in the suits he built.

Yes, seeing her in the armor when the Malibu house was destroyed was kind of hot, but that’s not what he means.

He means… He means that after everything, after seeing Pepper make such long arguments against his obsession with his armor – and for a good reason, Tony will admit, even if just to himself –, to see her embrace it, it softens the blow. It makes him feel less like he’s completely disappointing her every time he chooses the fight over her, which is a constant worry, a constant voice at the back of his head, the paranoia that never leaves, the anxiety. And it makes him feel more like… Maybe she does understand, on some level. Maybe it’s not a matter of her rejecting Iron Man. It’s the thing that kept Tony looking for that middle-ground between them for years, relentlessly, because a world where he could keep both Iron Man and Pepper Potts it’s a world Tony can’t simply pass by without trying to reach.

To see this, to see her enter the armor he built for her by her own means, feels powerful.

Feels like the beginning of something he doesn’t yet understand, and he’s afraid and curious and awed by what it could be.

The armor finishes closing itself around Pepper’s frame, and as the joints lock up and the faceplate slams down, the eyes light up in a bright flare, just like Tony’s, and the parallels of it make him feel weak in the knees, and his palms sweaty and hot.

“We’re becoming a full iron family now, aren’t we?” Rhodey jokingly says, but he sounds a little winded, which honestly makes it even funnier in Tony’s ears, and he lets out a barked laugh under his breath.

It’s beautiful.

It doesn’t have gold, because Pepper always preferred silver. It looks like Tony’s old armors, before he made his current one of nanotech, a model closer to the armor Pepper used when the Mandarin attacked, because it was an armor she would recognize better. Also, Tony would never create for her a suit that functions like his, one that demands implants and it might feel too invasive, when, in an ideal world, she would have never even used it. Because she’s thinner, the armor looks slimmer, and she has less bulk than his own, not focusing on the heavy-hitting force, but speed. The shape of the shoulders and the lines of the torso, flank, and legs is more dynamic that his’ or Rhodey’s large, wide top-half of the suits.

But it’s just as powerful. It feels imposing, and untouchable.

The glow on the chest plate, though, is what Tony can’t stop staring at.

A miniature Arc Reactor, to power the suit. Just like his’. Just like his heart.

It’s important and it’s eye-opening, breathtaking, and Tony almost has to avert his gaze, because if he stares at it too long, he’s going to lose it.

And he makes the mistake of looking at Rogers, unconsciously, and, as if sensing his gaze, Rogers’ eyes flick back and find his, and they stare at each other, in silence—

Intense.

It’s not judgment. It’s not… a threat. Tony finds himself lost in the habit of looking for Rogers’ reaction at a pivotal moment, to search for his face and measure his expression, his eyes, when they are at an impasse. This, right here, is an important moment; It’s the moment where they’re standing on unsteady ground, with a choice, and they both are leaning towards different sides. It’s the story of their lives, honestly. Karma. They’re both pondering the option of allowing or stopping Pepper from joining them, weighing benefits and risks, and they’re both unsure, but they have to choose.

But Tony chose.

Tony chose yes.

But if Rogers says no, this can all go downhill very, very fast.

So Tony stares. Even if it makes a shiver run down his spine at the strength of Rogers’ blue eyes, even if it makes a bead of sweat run down his back unpleasantly, he stares back, and he hopes Rogers can see his resolve, his request, and just for once, agree without a fight.

And then—

And then, he nods.

Tony’s eyes go wide, and he exhales harshly in a shudder, and startles a bit when Pepper suddenly moves on the other side, her faceplate sliding up again, to show her mildly surprised face inside. “So?” she says, pretending this isn’t just as overwhelming to her as it is to everyone else. “Any more complaints?”

They all trade looks, and then, they all look at Rogers, but Rogers is looking at Tony.

Until he looks at Pepper and says:

“No complaints.”, and just like that, “You’re in, Pepper.”

Just like that, something in Tony’s world shifts.

 

They have to fly slow. The Quinjet is barely picking up any satellite signals and the dust clouds are too dense, and they can’t risk a fast trip, no matter if the chances of them encountering another aircraft on the way are slim to none. It gets really hard to see. The Compound is far away from the center of the city, remote, for both protection and comfort; But now, even the false sense of peace that the isolated location usually brought is broken, the empty, vacant spaces between the trees is glaringly obvious, it shatters the illusion, it brings the cold, harsh reality in.

Colder, by the day.

As they board the Quinjet, Tony slips back on his glasses, sighing in a small sensation of relief when FRIDAY’s voice echoes in his ear, proper, determined and familiar, and he resists the urge to rub at his chest, especially when Nebula is watching him like a hawk all the way to the boarding site.

“The Benatar has more room.” She had complained, and then the raccoon agreed.

“I don’t want to be an a-hole for nothing, but she’s got a point.” Rocket, Tony’s having a little difficulty getting used to that, says. “Your ship is a little… outdated.”

But it’s hard enough that they’ll have to fly over a city that had just gotten attacked by alien spaceships, nevermind flying one the civilians, if there are any on the way, won’t recognize, and stir up panic.

Which means they have to cram inside the Quinjet as best as they can, like the world biggest, most tense, most awkward get along-shirt ever, as soon as they’re able, and they’ll have to figure out later how they’re going to manage the trip back, considering how many civilians they encounter.

The most effective way to cover ground faster is to establish a perimeter and expand it from there. Sweep the city from the center out, as Rogers describes, but it’s hard to pinpoint a ground zero when the entire city is just one large red warning on their radar, and priorities become a blur. In the end, it’s Pepper that suggests they should go back to the hospital she’d been on for the past couple of days, because they knew there would be survivors there, including children, and they should continue on from there.

So, that’s what they do.

They fly towards the hospital.

 

They never make it there.

 

When they board, Tony sits by the back.

It’s purposefully away from the front and the big, wide glass panels that display the city below, so he won’t have to look, won’t have himself flooded with despair and helplessness, not before he can’t help it anymore, because he has no time to waste by watching chaos unfold beneath his feet. It would be pure, senseless punishment, and even if Tony sometimes seems too eager to hurt, too eager to remember things that cut him open from the inside, like thorns ripping their way out of his chest where it used to bloom bright blue, this is a line Tony is not yet ready to cross.

Multitasking. He’s good at that.

He has a planet to save. It’ll be better for him, if he remembers that.

So, he sits at the back, beside Nebula and Pepper, both of them already geared up for action, Nebula with her electric batons and Pepper in her armor – her armor, dear God, Tony almost gets whiplash every time he thinks about it, the sheer absurdity of it  –, and he lets the sound of the turbines drown out his voice as he asks for FRIDAY to pull up some research papers about environmental imbalance, studies on the effects of extinction of species in food chains, ozone depletion, solar radiation management, global dimming, the goddamned winter that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs – Anything he can think of that involves similar key elements, hoping he can somehow form a puzzle that fits, a projection that will allow him to measure the effects of the attack, the snap of Thanos’ fingers, more accurately, to know exactly where he has to act to stop it.

He'd promised Bruce he’d do it. So, he has to multitask.

The flashing images before his eyes, much like the lights of the HUD, are familiar and hypnotic, and he reads paragraphs and theories and debates of all sorts of areas and specialists, from ecologists to astrophysicists, and interprets graphs and readings as fast as he can, until his head aches, until he has no less than four theoretical outcomes, one bleaker than the other, a thousand of concerns, and not single one simple solution.

He’s still worrying about it, resisting the urge to rub his eyes until he can see sparks beneath his eyelids, desperately wishing he wasn’t still so damned exhausted after an entire ten hours of sleep, when it starts to happen.

The Quinjet starts to go dark.

The lights are still on, the glowing panels working just fine, no alarm, no indication that there’s anything wrong with it.

The Quinjet is not the problem.

Tony’s left leg is bouncing anxiously with restless energy, his eyes almost dry from looking to fast from one graph to another, one paper to another, one bad news to another, from the far too close projection of his glasses; When he feels, just next to the periphery of his eyes, the light coming all the way from the front of the jet dim a little. The cold, soft blue morphs into bland gray, slowly, but surely, and once it starts, it doesn’t stop.

The world goes gray, and then grayer, and grayer, and grayer.

And then it starts to go black—

Black,

Black.

He looks up, on edge. He turns off the projections on the glasses—

“Oh my God.” Bruce exhales, at the same time Natasha and Rhodey swear, sharply and anguished.

“We have to turn around.” Rogers hastily alerts. “Or land. We can’t go through it.”

“What is it?” Tony gets up, suddenly despairing, but hesitating to go forward. He sees Nebula pull out a baton, but Rocket and Pepper stop her, extending their arms in front of her to keep her still.

“Smoke cloud.” Natasha says through gritted teeth. “We can’t go through. It’s too big.”

“What’s causing it?”

“Something on the ground. Seems like a large explosion. I’m still picking up big heat signatures on the radar.” She says, as she clicks buttons and turns switches on and off in lightning speed, her brows creased painfully. “It’s too dangerous to go closer.”

“The hospital isn’t far away.” Rhodey barks, angry, although Tony isn’t sure if he’s angry at Natasha, at himself, or at the smoke. “We can’t stop in the middle of the way.”

“How far?” Pepper asks—

But she never gets an answer, because, suddenly, they all stop.

Right there—

Under the smoke. They can see it, when the Quinjet starts to turn, and the wind blows strong enough to clear the sight, to see it beneath the rubble.

Holy shit.

“It’s a plane.” Bruce whispers.

It’s hard to see, so hard, because the air is so gray it’s almost black. Dust and dirt fly through the air in visible particles, soot and smoke, a cloud of darkness that floods the senses, a smell so strong it seeps in through the jet, past the insolation, strong and disgusting, and it festers it all with the scent of burning rubber and sulfur, of fire, of doom.

But it is a plane. Tony can see the wing, slicing through a building, crooked and gigantic, right there.

It’s a Boeing of some sort, Tony can’t even tell which one, because most of it it’s completely gone. The metal is charred black, distorted and ugly, and there’s a hole on the top, exposing the black interior, where the smoke seems to start from. It’s jammed across the avenue, it leveled a building, that’s completely destroyed, concrete and stone piled like corpses on top of the entire right side, burying it beneath an enormous mountain of rubble. The heat signature panels warn them, in flashing messages, that there are still some small fires in the middle of it. Tony can’t even see where.

He can’t see people.

He sees no survivors.

“Land.” He says, in a haste, tapping Natasha on the shoulder frantically. “We have to look closer.”

“Down there, are you kidding?” The raccoon exclaims.

“There might be people down there!” Tony reminds them. “We have to help them!”

But no one is arguing. Natasha and Rogers are both adjusting the controls and grabbing the controls, pushing them slowly towards the ground, looking for a place to land that is not completely unstable. They can’t land on any of the roofs, because it seems like there has been an explosion, and the buildings surrounding the plane are all covered in black, sprays of ash and soot across their windows and fronts, a testament to just how strong the explosion caused by the plane must’ve been. One of the nearby buildings has almost an entire chunk of the front missing, probably from something that flew into it from the plane.  

They have to put the Quinjet on the ground, because there’s nowhere else that’s safe enough. It’s terribly difficult, to find a free space large enough for the size of the jet, between the abandoned cars, the pieces of concrete that seem to have been catapulted from the explosion into the streets and buildings nearby,

The turbines make the ashes and the dust swirl madly, like a storm, the world getting restless and angry around them, stirring up and awaking for revenge, for retaliation—

To reprimand, for failing to fulfill their promises.

They are all suited up, already. Some of them didn’t have anything else to wear. Rhodey and Pepper decided to suit up early, Tony has offered Bruce one of his Kevlar suits prototypes he had in his workshop, Nebula and Rocket have no armor besides what they have on their back. They say they don’t need it. Tony is the only one not in his armor yet, and while the others start to move frantically, gathering weapons, he turns to look at Nebula, his hand hovering on the nanite casing in his sternum, a hesitant question in his eyes.

“It’s working.” Nebula assures him, as she holds to her batons with clenched fists. “Put your helmet on.”

So Tony trusts her, and taps his chest twice, his fingers pushing the case into his chest, and he feels a little jolt of electricity as the markers beneath his skin activate in a cascade of transmissions, like his neurons, and from his chest, the nanites cover his body in a wave, following the lines of his frame, and – Tony isn’t sure, because he doesn’t look, but he’s pretty sure the raccoon whistles, and Tony decides he’s gonna ignore that and never think about it again.

As soon as the doors open, the dryness of the air scratches Tony’s lungs like nails on a chalkboard, dust and dirt specks coating the floor and floating in the air, visible, tangible, terrifying, and he commands the armor to give him his helmet as quickly as he can, even though the scent is already in his brain. A haze of smoke swirls above their heads, moving along the air of the turbines like a whip, and even with the protection of the armor and the aid of his scans, he can’t see more than a few feet beyond the opening of the ramp.

“Stay close together, all on comms.” Rogers orders, and it’s nearly Pavlovian to obey, to defer to his forwardness, to his single-minded leadership. “We need to figure out what happened here.”

Tony doesn’t even think about what he’s doing until he does it, and he finds himself following Rogers out of the Quinjet closely, nearly side by side, as he runs forward and Tony immediately shoots up and tries to gain altitude, to analyze the situation from above, to give him visuals and decide the first course of action.

Tony hadn’t realized how often he did that, before.

He hadn’t realized how different it became, when he had to stop.

“Iron Man, what do you see?” Roger’s voice comes up by his comm line, just as Pepper and Rhodey are gearing up and joining him up the sky, looking around carefully. Truth is, they can only see a blur of the plane from where they are, it’s a little too far away and too deep into the smoke, which means all he can see is the silhouette, the enormous, misshapen mass of it, jammed across the street before it disappears beneath a mountain of concrete blocks on their left.

“No civilians.” Tony says, which is true. Stats first. “No fire, no electrical discharge, but be careful anyway. It sees like the impact isn’t new. It probably… It probably fell when it happened, and no rescue team came ever since.”

“What about the buildings?” Bruce asks, from where he’s standing near the jet, from the point with most visibility from the ground, away from the smoke. “There might be people trapped in them!”

“Pep, check the right side for me.” Tony asks, pointing to the side, the one with the least impact of the plane. “Scan the floors, see if you find any civilians.”

“Okay.” Pepper agrees, if a little shakily, but flies towards the opposite side with remarkable ease, heading towards the still-standing buildings with careful attention.

Tony is a little anxious to watch her go, but he can’t think too much about it. So, he turns, and he says:

“Rhodey, you’re with me.” He signals. “We’re going in.”

“In?” Pepper asks, a little worried, through the comms.

“Check for survivors inside.” Tony explains. “Romanov, Nebula, got any ground info I should be aware of before going in?”

“We’ll check underneath.” Natasha’s voice answers efficiently, although Nebula doesn’t say a word. Tony can’t see them to check if everything’s alright.

“Thor, be on stand-by.” Rogers says. “Be ready to keep the plane steady in case we need it.”

“What about me?” Rocket asks.

“Depends, what can you do?” Tony replies.

“Rocket, we need you inside the building.” Rogers answers, right after. “Where the wing went through. Get in there if you can, check the damage. Report on what you see.”

“You got it.”

The stress is so high Tony would twitch in place if he wasn’t flying, stabilized by his armor. He gets jitters when he’s this nervous. He wants to go in, because he’s far away enough that he can’t see the actual damage, but he’s waiting on some visuals from Natasha and Nebula to make sure they won’t cause any sort of damage while doing in, like accidentally causing it to slide and jam deeper into the building over, also toppling it. Tony flies closer to the rubble he can see, the remains of what once was probably a seven or eight store building that is now completely reduced to its bare bones, crumbled like a house of cards, and he realizes, with a pit of pure despair opening in his guts, that if they search below it, they will probably find bodies.

“I don’t see civilians.” Pepper informs them through comms, out of breath, as she scans the second or the third building frantically. “I think they escaped.”

“Check the building closer to the explosion.” Natasha suggests through gritted teeth, and the tightness in her voice betrays her. “Tony, Rhodey, you’re in. Looks sturdy enough.”

And it sounds like a go, it sounds like everything is going fine, until, in her next breath, she says—

“We have casualties.”

And the world seems to go dead silent.

No one says nothing on the comms.

Tony can hear his own breath so loud it sounds deafening.

“Three women, two men.” A pause. They all wait. “Two children.”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut.

Christ.

Fuck.

“Be careful.” Natasha says, softly. “There might be more inside.”

“Going in.” Tony harshly says, uncaring if he sounds furious, because he is, uncaring if he sounds like he’s losing it, because he is. “Someone start looking into the rubble of the building. We have to clear that up next.”

“Tony.” Rogers says, as an alert, trying to stop him – and Tony ignores it, diving down fast and determined, Rhodey following close behind, as they go deeper into the black cloud of smoke, like the world is closing in on them, and they zero into the hole on top of the plane, where a trail of fumes still blows from, focused on nothing else.

“Oh God.” He hears Pepper’s voice, and the distant sound of repulsor boots activating and firing up, as she probably flies to join them.

Tony promised her he wouldn’t be reckless.

(It’s a promise he keeps breaking.)

(Over and over again.)

It’s near impossible to look inside the plane, even with the aid of the helmets. It’s all black, as far as they can see.

Tony starts closing in slowly, feet first, lowering himself with a cautioned trajectory so he can look around while he moves.

Up close, the plane looks so large it’s frightening.

He can see the whole extent of the wing, jutting out from the body, where the white paint creates a sharp, terrible contrast to the black soot that covers the cabin. It went through half of the third floor, taking down walls and windows, destroying the interior, and who knows what else it was inside. Who else. Tony can’t see anything but chaos and electric cables loose from the ceilings. Probably the only thing keeping this building up is the wing itself, and if it moves, they might have another problem on their hands.

“Stay clear from the wing.” Tony warns them. “The building is unstable. It might collapse.”

The other side is buried beneath the rubble. The smell of concrete and dust is as strong as the smoke, overbearing, and the plane is tilting in that direction a little, held down by the weight of the stones. When Tony looks closer, the space suddenly vacant because of the plane impact looks too wide, and he realizes two buildings must’ve gone down when it hit, not just one.

Which is worse.

It’s bad. It’s bad, bad, oh God, this is bad.

Tony hovers above the hole on top of the plane, for the briefest of seconds, and goes down painfully slow, aware of any wiring or stray piece of foam or any other flammable object he might touch, watching, terribly hypnotized, as the dark interior or the cabin starts to creep closer, and closer, until he’s surrounded by it.

And suddenly, he realizes.

There won’t be any survivors.

“Tony?” Rhodey asks, and it sounds like he’s coming from miles and miles away. “What do you see?”

He sees nothing.

Tony can only identify that he is, in fact, in a plane cabin, because he knows what a plane cabin looks like. He recognizes the organization of the rows, the pairs of chairs next to the windows and down the center, he recognizes the idea of what it should be, and not truly what he sees.

Because what he sees is black.

Civilian casualties aren’t what they deal with, personally.

And there is a reason for that.

When Tony is standing there, in the middle of this charred scraps, black dust beneath his boots and the smell of burnt metal on his nose, with his helmet pulled back so he can feel the nearly unbearable heat of the cabin, a sharp contrast to the biting cold of the world outside this explosion site, so he feels the dirt sticking to his face, the disgusting feeling of his hands sweating cold beneath his gauntlets – he looks at the floor of the plane, to the burnt bodies of those who didn’t manage to get out on time, Tony remembers why.

Tony remembers why they are called dangerous.

Tony remembers why the mess that pushed them apart when Thanos arrived even existed in the first place.

It’s because people get hurt, in the wake of the things they do, or fail to do. People get hurt, people get killed, no matter how hard they try, and to dealt with this on top of dealing with leading the fight against forces they sometimes don’t understand is more than their minds can handle.

It’s hard to look at bodies trapped beneath rubble, burnt, or forgotten on the street. It’s hard to look at them and see what has been lost, the opportunity, the possibility, entire lifetimes taken away in seconds, and knowing they arrived too late. It breaks the heart. It crushes the mind. Tony stares at them and realizes these people at his feet were the supposed lucky ones, the ones who didn’t disappear in the grand decimation, but they still suffered the consequences of it anyway, and in the end—

They all got the same fate. They all ended up being taken.

And it makes Tony scared, it makes him scared, because he can see—

He can see it in his mind’s eye, how it was. How this happened. This plane came crashing down, on the middle of the day, when no one was expecting it, and it crashed on the street. The people working on the buildings to the left were probably busy, having lunch, handing in reports, just trying to make an honest living. Or maybe – maybe this was a residential area. Tony doesn’t know. He can’t see enough of the street to know. The air is filled with gray. They might’ve been residential buildings, those people might’ve been families, safe inside their homes, until something from above came and crashed down on them until there was nothing left. The building across the street, the one that’s still miraculously standing up – how did they run? Did they get any help on time? How many of them in there vanished, before the wing sliced through the walls? There might still be people in there. Under that wing. There might be even more bodies to count.

He can see the way this will end.

It’s his curse, it’s his instinct, he just knows. Tony looks at these bodies and he sees the first fire of many, the first explosion in God knows how many more across the country, across the world, from crashes and accidents no one ever came to rescue because the rescue died, or fled, scared for their own safety and their own families. Maybe eventually they’ll feel confident enough that they won’t suddenly disappear too, maybe, as the days or maybe months go by, while they wait, terrified, for a second wave of the attack to come only to realize it won’t; Maybe then, they’ll be able to bring these casualties to a minimum, but what will they do until then?

Government is destroyed. Society is destroyed. If someone, somewhere, with enough influence over the less secure people, decided to seize the opportunity to put themselves above others, they could cause enormous damage before they even hear about it. Almost all communication is down. This is –

This is one plane of many. Thousands of them. Maybe even millions. Who knows exactly?

Accidents. Fire. Death. How many more?

Oh, God, this is nuclear apocalypse, the thing Tony heard over and over again when he was a child, when scientists like Sagan and Toon talked about men like his father like they were men who would help the US and the USSR to destroy the world. Tony had been the son of a man who built weapons, for fuck's sake, he had been the man who builds weapons. He had seen all the warnings, PSAs, and manifestos. He knows the projections – ash covered sky, barren land, no rules. No communication. Moving into bunkers, famine, lack of resources, raids—

He knows this future. He used to have nightmares about it.

He used to see the weapons his father helped create up close.

He knows how this goes.

Tony looks up, eyes stinging with unshed tears, breath heaving and heart beating fast, and he feels like the world is crushing him, swallowing him whole, like the vast universe had been, in silence, predatory, with no mercy. The sunlight stretches thin, going out like a flickering candle behind a curtain, obscured by the heavy clouds that slither closer and closer with promises of rain, with the smell of sulfur and ozone, cold wind whistling loud in his ears.

And he sees Titan—

He sees Titan, he sees chaos, he sees destruction.

He sees the end.

The dark surrounds them, merciless, ruthless – and the world grows cold.

“It won’t be enough.” Tony whispers, dejectedly, the catastrophe flashing in front of his eyes, the all-consuming fear latching onto his mind like a parasite, the paranoia, now, made true. “Trying to curb this won’t be enough.”

He knows it to be true.

He knows.

He always knows.

“We have to find a way to reverse this. To bring them back.” Tony says, breathlessly, and suddenly a hand immediately shoots out to grab his arm, firm and strong, demanding, scaring him, and Tony looks around to find Pepper, armor-clad,  desperation obvious in her posture, and even worse in her voice, when she calls:

“Tony?”

“We have to bring them back.” Tony repeats, because there’s nothing else he can say.

Through the faceplate, Tony can’t see her expression.

He doesn’t need to. He knows.

He knows fear when he sees it.

Notes:

This chapter hurts. It hurts a lot. The next one, unfortunately, will do too, but for a different reason.

I'm pushing Tony into a very specific situation. A very particular dilemma. One that's not new, but this time, it's going to change everything. Don't let Tony fool you. Don't let this on and off, together or not, this mess of a relationship fool you. Whether you like Pepper or not, whether you ship it, or not - we are reaching a point where it can no longer be denied that there's an unsolved problem between them, a problem never spoken about, but a problem that no longer can be overlooked.

What problem is that? Priorities.

And you will soon see exactly what I mean.

Next time we see each other, I will already have seen Endgame. Hopefully you too! I'm watching it on the 24th, which means that by the 25th, I'll be fully available to discuss the movie with anyone who wishes to, if anyone does, on my twitter DMs or my tumblr chat or asks. I'll be tagging anything related to the movie as "endgame spoilers", to make sure it doesn't bother anyone who doesn't want to see anything until they've seen the movie.

I hope it's a good one, guys. I'm very excited about it.

MCU, thank you for the last 10 wonderful years. Despite all the shit I give you, you have been, for sure, a joy in my life. I hope everyone has a good time watching this movie, and let's all enjoy it as much as we can.

Until next time. See you all on the other side ;)

Chapter 7: Chapter 7

Notes:

So. Endgame, huh? WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?

Just kidding, no spoilers for now. If we do get to talk about it, it'll be a little further down the line, when it becomes completely unavoidable - because, you know, plot. For now, we'll keep it spoiler free; But if you do want to talk about it, my twitter and my tumblr are always open to you guys. There's actually a gigantic post there about my opinions on the movie, so if you're curious about that, check it out!

Now, as we're in that part where everyone is just wondering where do we go from here in this fandom, I just want to remind you that the path of this story remains unchanged. Nothing that happened in Endgame affects this fic. Here, we work with IW and no further, and the only information I'll ever use or mention about Endgame will be solely to flesh out the rules of my own plot, to know the limits I can push, or make some nice comparisons for you guys. Nothing that will change the ultimate fate of this narrative. The universe that exists in here works in different rules, different priorities, and also, different results.

I have an opportunity to use something Marvel didn't, and I'm not gonna waste it.

But enough about that. Let's talk Pepper Potts.

You might think, from the way I talk about her relationship with Tony as being one with unspoken issues, or from the way this is a SteveTony fic, despite the setting I proposed so far being totally capable of allowing Pepperony to grow closer instead of further apart, that I dislike Pepper. I don't, actually. Pepper is a great character, she has clear morals and objectives, and I respect her. I might not ship it madly, but that doesn't mean I don't understand it, or can't imagine why people do; After all, canonically, Tony does love her, and wobbly as it is, it is the first romantic pairing of the MCU.

But that doesn't mean I think she fits where the MCU has placed her. I have no problem with Pepper - My problem is that I believe that her morals, at this point in the timeline, simply don't fit her role.

If you think Pepper's reservations are about Iron Man, you're only seeing half the picture. There's a pattern to her behavior, and that pattern is directly related to what Tony does or doesn't do. If you think Iron Man is the problem, you're watching Pepper react to Tony's actions without thinking about Tony's actions. About what they mean. You can't understand why Pepper does what she does with their relationship without looking at Tony too. His morals, his actions, his choices.

The problem is not Iron Man. The problem is that, at the very core, Tony and Pepper are driven by the same force - but they fly in different paths.

Sometimes, friends, love is not enough to guide you back.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

They go back empty-handed.

In a way. They never reach the hospital, because the night falls upon them too soon, the clouds uncaring of their struggle, drowning the world in black before they are even halfway through the job. Not even a third into the job, even. The plane had been unsalvageable, all possible clues to indicate the identity of its passengers burnt to the ground in dark soot, and Tony had been trying too hard not to think about what exactly he was seeing or he was touching when he reached out and let his fingers graze across the wall of distorted metal, staining the gold and red of his suit with ash, to process it correctly.

The plane also is unable to be moved because of the building it was still holding up. So, they moved to the building next.

When they started finding the bodies… It all became a little too much.

The trip to the hospital is a lost cause then. They take the only thing they have, heavy hearts and a body count, and retreat back to the Compound to regroup, reorganize, to…

To mourn. Because… what else can they do?

They are as silent as a cemetery, the sound of the turbines roaring in their ears, a constant stream of noise to accompany the loud pulsing of the blood in their veins, the feeling of palms sweaty and dirty with ash, beneath fingernails, sticking to the skin like a branding of sin. Tony had been using a helmet the entire time, but he feels like his lungs are scratching terribly every time he inhales. His mouth is dry. He has never felt so uncomfortable in his own skin, itching beneath the surface, a mixture of hot and cold of the most unpleasant kind and—

He sits there in silence and he stares at nothing, lost, and all he knows is one thing:

It can’t go one like this.

(It can’t.)

Not just because – not because he will not sit by and watch it happen. He won’t. He would never. Tony may not see any way out of this yet, but he will find one, goddammit, he will not rest until he can see it, he can make it, until it works.

But he knows. He knows, he knows, he knows—

“We need to find a way to reverse it.”

His voice echoes inside the cold walls of the Quinjet. Bounces back to his own ears.

It sounds harsh.

It sounds… final.

He doesn’t look up, but he can feel the others moving. He can feel their stares. The sensation is similar to a thousand needles poking his skin, sharp and shallow, stinging –the hairs on his forearms standing up with a nearly animal instinct of unease, and he hates it. He feels awful, nauseated, and defensive.

He feels incredibly alone.

Rocket is the only one who reacts enough to ask:

“Reverse it?”

“This. This – decimation.” Tony says, firmly. “We need to find a way to bring back everything Thanos took.”

A pause.

“You’re crazy.” Rocket says, simply, and sits back again and pretends to ignore him.

The others still haven’t said a word.

Their silence speaks. Their silence has weight and depth, like an entire conversation, suffocated by discomfort, waves of mixed feelings floating through the air. They stare and stare, eyes sharp and filled with hesitation, holding their breaths like they’re waiting for something very bad to happen. Like they’re waiting for him to react very, very suddenly, and very badly. Rogers and Romanov, at the front, can’t turn back to face him – and yet, lingering at the periphery of his vision, there’s a tension to their shoulders, an unnatural stiffness to their posture, a cautiously attentive ear.

Tony doesn’t know if they’re afraid of what he’ll say, or of what he’ll do.

He doesn’t know if they know the difference either.

“That’s not possible, Tony.” Bruce says gently, eyebrows scrunched up in painful sympathy, and Tony wonders if this is Bruce’s anxiety speaking, or if this is – this is the conclusion of the past three nights awake, of dark undereye bags and trembling hands, of searching and searching and coming up with nothing to prove. “Thanos took down more than half of the population. People died. We can’t just erase this.”

“Why not?” Tony forcibly asks. “Who is going to stop us?”

Tony closes his hand into a fist so tightly it hurts, even with the hard edge of the armor preventing him from digging his nails through his palm, just the pressure of his fingers squeezing so strongly it almost makes him cramp, tendons stretching painfully all the way to his arm, skin pulled tight at his knuckles, aching for impact. It feels like rage. But more. It’s rage and grief and disbelief, it’s a feral rejection, a denial, and Tony embraces it and allows it to consume him whole, even as it brings a lump to his throat, as his breath cuts sharp when he breathes in and his eyes burn with strain.

It won’t go on like this.

Tony is pissed off. Tony is –

Tony has never been so enraged in his life. Not even to Stane or what happened in Gulmira, not to Loki or Ultron, not to Killian, not even to Rogers. This is hellish anger, this is vengeful.

He will – God, fuck, he will not cry, dammit –, he will fix this. He will.

He will not sit by and watch it happen.

He knows it’s possible to survive this. But he doesn’t want survival.

Not possible. Not possible, his ass.

It has to be. It has to be possible. More impossible things have happened. An alien with a magical gauntlet happened, and it destroyed the universe with a snap of his fingers. Billions, trillions on Earth alone, who knows how many others out there? It should have been impossible. This – this kind of tragedy shouldn’t even be able to exist. In comparison, a way out, a way to fix this—

It has to be—

It has to be possible.

(It has to be.)

The son of a bitch took so much. He took it all.

They’re gonna have to take it back.

It’s the only way.

No one vouches for him. No one agrees, nor gives any indication they are considering the idea to be doable. They are thinking about it, alright. He feels it in the air, the charge, the smell. But they are thinking about it already defeated, shoulders slumped and eyes averted, mouths twisted in displeased lines and frown etched deep, miserable and broken. They think, and think, and think, and Tony waits with his fists clenched tight, resisting the urge to chew on his lip so hard he’ll draw blood, and if it makes him angrier, it makes him burn hotter, if it makes him more and more certain that he is right—

He’ll do it alone if he has to.

(He doesn’t want to.)

(He’s tired of doing this alone.)

He’ll do it. With, or without them. He’d… he’d rather have help, he’d… fuck, it really hurts, the idea that on even after the apocalypse they would trust him with this, even if Tony knows he sounds a little like a maniac – but he thinks he’s in his right, okay? This is not – Who exactly is thinking straight right now? No one. No one is alright, but they have to do something, because if they don’t, soon enough they’ll be wiped from Earth just like everyone else was. He knows his idea is outrageous, and he knows it’s dangerous, but isn’t that what they do? Isn’t that the purpose of being a superhero, to do the outrageous to keep others safe?

How many will die while they scramble to find a long-term solution? How many plane crashes or accidents, fires and smoke, how many starving or freezing or alone or suffocated until they manage to stabilize things before they can fix it?

It’s dangerous. It will… If they manage to pull it off, chances are some of them might not come back alive. Maybe even all of them.

Thanos has the stones. All six of them. He could easily obliterate them if he wanted to. He is still the most powerful being in the entire universe, and he has all the advantage because he has the bigger stick and he’s very hard to kill, to begin with. To be honest – it’s probably… it’s probably a suicide mission. Tony’s best tech couldn’t stop him. He had only four stones then, and all Tony had done was to draw one drop of blood.

But—

But that’s enough for him.

It’s enough.

Thanos bleeds.

That’s all Tony needs to know. That is all he cares about. If Tony couldn’t stop him before, all he has to do is to make sure the next time they meet, Tony will be strong enough to kill him.

And he’ll do it alone if he must.

Silence.

The rest of the journey is silent, again. Somehow, it feels worse than before.

The Compound is dark inside, but the lights on the landing pad are light up, tiny bursts of color cutting through the oppressing black of the night, like stars guiding them through a dark night in the woods. The cold, this far away from the city, bites. Even inside the jet, Tony can feel a slight sting on his cheeks, around his nose, skin pulled tight, and he’s twitching in place nervously, adrenaline pumping strong in his veins, and he can’t wait to step out of this goddamned Quinjet and head to his lab, to tinker, to plan. His mind, always running, always moving too fast, that before was dragging itself forward at a snail’s pace thanks to the pit in his stomach and the dreadful feeling of hopelessness gurgling in his guts; now it flares intensely, roaring in impatience, restless energy bursting through his body, on the tap of his feet on the ground, on the twitch of his hands and legs.

He’ll make this better. He’ll improve, he’ll adapt. He will find a way to that that Gauntlet out of Thanos’ hand.

The Quinjet lands. No one moves.

They do not speak.

Tony is nearly standing up and storming out, needing to step away, to stop himself from reacting in a way he won’t be able to take back or justify later, when, to his utter astonishment, Rogers says:

“How would we do that?”

And something blooms in Tony’s chest, something strong and all-encompassing, that twists in a knot that entangles gratitude and vindication and frustration and spite all at once, an irrational cocktail that swirls and rotates like the Devil’s drink itself, promising too much, not promising enough, a bargain that has no winner or loser, no right and wrong—

Only a burning, scorching sense of—

(Fix it.)

(Fix it.)

(Fix it.)

“We need that gauntlet.” Tony says, with complete certainty.

That makes them move.

Thor slumps heavily on his seat, while both Bruce and Rocket flail confusedly, and Romanov whips her head towards Rogers so sharply is a marvel she doesn’t hurt herself. Nebula’s back goes as stiff as a board, her eyes hot as coal, curious – but Rhodey and Pepper, they jump in his direction, reaching out to his arms and hands, as if they could stop him from doing something when he’s just standing there, perfectly still. It’s his words that frighten them. Rhodey is apprehensive, but Pepper—

Pepper’s eyes go wild with worry, and when she hisses, “Tony.”, her voice catches on her throat, and it sounds like it hurts.

He’s going to hurt her again. He will.

(But what other choice does he have?)

“It’s the only way we can do this.” He says, brows furrowed, eyes apologetic; But his words stand firm.

“Tony.” Pepper repeats, more forcefully. “Do you hear yourself?”

“The Gauntlet was damaged.”

Tony turns to look at Thor, mind snapping in a whiplash, a little surprised by this revelation.

“When Thanos escaped.” Thor says, and his words bleed guilt and grief, heavy as his hammer, a weight too heavy for any of them to comprehend. “He snapped his fingers and wiped away half the universe – and it cost him the Gauntlet. I saw it, up close. It was burned and deformed.”

Tony struggles to process this information, when he realizes how much he’s actually lacking from the previous days. They really didn’t – they didn’t talk at all, did they? Tony has no idea what happened to them, and they have no idea what happened to him. Thor – Thor saw Thanos up close. Like he did. Did they all? Thor had been close enough to see the Gauntlet when the snap came – what happened?

But it all halts when the word finally catches up to him and he realizes what Thor just implied.

He thinks the Gauntlet is destroyed. That it’s useless.

“How do you know?” Tony insists. “Are you sure?”

“I saw it, Stark.” Thor repeats, angrily. “It was destroyed.”

“Then how did he escape?”

Thor – they all – pause.

“He used it.” Thor tells him, sounding stunned, confused. “He opened a portal. Using the Space Stone.”

“So it works.” Tony prods. “It’s broken, but it still works.

“Possibly.” Thor says, after a long moment of hesitation. “Yes. But not enough for a second snap of fingers.”

“You don’t know that!”

“You don’t know either.”

“This is insane.” Rocket complains.

“Are you seriously considering this?” Pepper interferes, stepping forward, frantic. Tony, cruelly, ignores her.

“Do you have any other brilliant idea?” He snaps at Thor.

“Maybe accept the fact that we can’t get it back?”

“I don’t believe you.” Tony accuses. “I don’t believe you would let it lie like this. I don’t accept it.”

“You think I want this?” Thor stands up, tall and imposing, threatening, and the hurt swimming behind the dual color of his eyes, stormy blue and simmering gold, is the only thing that keeps Tony steady in his stance, even as the others start to protest around them, trying to stop their argument with varying degrees of panic. “You think I’m fine with Thanos destroying this planet? The universe?”

“You’re not fine.” Tony says, and it sounds much more like an accusation than he intended to, but he can’t help it, not even if he can see how strongly the hurt hits behind Thor’s hard glare, even if he knows he shouldn’t pick up a fight with one of the only people Tony doesn’t have bad blood with from his original team, even if Thor doesn’t deserve this pain any more than any of them do.

But Tony is angry.

Tony is angry and once again, no one is listening to him, and Rogers of all people asked, Rogers asked – and Thor, the god of thunder, Thor, the one person Tony had thought would jump at the opportunity to take revenge on an enemy as strong as Thanos, is refusing to act?

“I think you’re scared.” Tony says, and it hurts him as much as it hurts Thor, he can see it, he can feel it in his own heart. The words hit them both like a punch, Tony swaying in place just as Thor’s jaw locks down tight and hard, hand squeezing around the handle of his axe, and that reactions echo so deep into Tony’s body that he unconsciously softens his voice, looks down, and feels bad for it. Feels bad for saying it out loud when they all are so clearly trying not to say it, to ignore it, to force themselves through it.

He’ll say it anyway, though. He will. Somebody has to.

“We all are.” Tony admits, fragilely. “We lost. We tried to stop him and we failed.

“And your plan is to fight him again.” Thor says, in a dark tone. “Now, when he has all six Infinity Stones and is more powerful than ever? The most powerful being in the entire universe?”

“All I care about is that we bring back everyone he took from us, and we can’t sit here and do nothing while he kicks back and has a drink, thinking he’s won.” Tony hisses back. “He’s not invincible. He bleeds. Even with the strongest weapon in the world – no weapon can’t be destroyed.”

Tony knows that. He knows that better than anyone.

“Without that gauntlet, he’s just an alien-like any other.” Tony pushes into Thor’s personal space, feeling bigger, larger than life, the force of the flames inside his chest expanding in an explosion. “Our job is to stop aliens from destroying our home. Our mission is to avenge the Earth. That’s why we’re here for.

Thor stares back at him, his eyes sparkling with emotions too fast for Tony to process them, even as his face stays so perfectly blank that it almost seems like he isn’t fully there. The others watch them tensely, the weight of Tony’s words falling upon them just like he has thrown them at Thor, the raw, unfiltered strength of his plea, the meaning of this belief that has roots so deep into his being Tony no longer has any chance of cutting them out finally exposed to them.

Thor looks in pain. Whatever has happened in his absence, whatever Thor has gone through during the years he’d been away looking for the Stones – this man before Tony is not the same man that left the Compound years ago. It’s not the haircut, it’s not the weapon. It’s the hurt, the low, mellow sadness in his eyes, the tense pull of his neck, the pout in his lips as he grinds his teeth and holds back words or tears or whatever it is he’s trying so hard to conceal. He has never looked so distressingly human before.

Tony had missed him during the mess with the Accords. Just like he had missed Bruce. Tony had missed them both, for so many reasons, but now, mostly because he had believed that of all of them, as a god, as a prince, Thor, more than anyone else, would know that it is his – their – duty to protect those who can’t. To take back what is stolen. To not accept offense against the people he holds dear.

And Thor is hesitating. Thor is looking at Tony, and then at his axe, like something is eating him from the inside out, like there’s a question almost bursting out of his lips that he’s holding back just because he won’t stand to hear it out loud, and Tony doesn’t know what happened to him, but he needs someone to agree with him, he needs them to see, and if Thor was the one who got closer, if Thor was there when Thanos snapped his fingers and saw him win; Thor has to know how Tony felt when he saw the kid vanish. The moment of realization.

Tony knows how much stronger Thanos is. He’s well aware.

He needs them to be on board with this. They’ll have a better chance if they do this—

(Together.)

Tony doesn’t know what happened to Thor. He wishes he had time to ask. He wishes he wasn’t so angry, or so frantic, or so scared – but he is, and he can’t do anything about it. The harsh truth is that Tony fucked up, they all did, they fucked up and Thanos won and it can’t end like this. He can’t be the only one who is so completely consumed by this need to reverse this, he can’t. They are all so insane, all of them, a group of ragtag maniacs full of traumas and violence, people who have made the mission of their lives to throw themselves at the line of fire, and now Tony is the only one who is thinking about this? He is the only one that can taste the insatiable hunger for revenge? No matter the odds?

Fuck the odds.

Thanos—

Thanos took his kid.

Tony will not rest.

Thor breathes, hard and deep, and Tony stands there waiting, seething – and the moment stretches so long it almost becomes painful, the force of Tony’s locked jaw hurting all the way into his teeth, until Thor’s face hardens into something so incredibly steadfast, pure strength, and he asks in a curt voice:

“Do you want to kill him?”

“I want to fix things.” Tony replies, firmly. “I’m not gonna let it end like this.”

“And Thanos?”

“Whatever happens to him after we take that gauntlet… I won’t lose sleep over it.”

Thor raises his gaze and meet Tony’s, and in there; in his eyes, there it is, the anger that also thrums inside Tony, the bite, the rage, and as hurtful as it is, Tony is glad to see it’s alive, that it survived, because they’ll need it.

“Good.” Thor says. “Then I’ll have his head.”

Thor’s agreement – it rushes into Tony like a hit of a drug, loud in his ears and burning into his veins, just as impactful as Roger’s veiled concession, because if they are considering it, Tony might actually convince them of doing this. It’s not the best plan. It’s the worst of plans. Tony knows how easily this could backfire, and he knows that considering his track record, it’s not a novelty that they are doubting him. They don’t… Tony knows what they think of him. Of his risky ideas. But now they have no choice but to agree, because Tony isn’t spewing this out of his ass; the proof is right outside, in the sky, in the air, and it’s just his anxiety talking, this is the truth.

Even if ever before, nor ever again – right now, Tony is right. And he will not compromise on this.

The others start talking again, almost hysterically, raising questions and concerns, but Tony can’t make a single word out of the cacophony of it all, the sound of blood rushing through his ears too loud and too overbearing. He sways back, honestly a little relieved – relieved, because he won’t be totally alone, relieved, because they might actually listen to him this time, they might actually understand what he’s trying to do –, and he once again makes the mistake of looking at Rogers, who is standing there, looking at him, perfectly still, with eyes intense and an earnest face; like he too agrees, like for the first time in who knows how long, maybe even the first time ever, he fully trusts Tony.

Tony averts his gaze.

He doesn’t need Rogers’ approval, but – but his support will definitely help. It will.

Tony tries to remind himself of that.

“Tony, please, stop for a second and listen to me.” Pepper begs, holding his arms, going around so she can stand in front of him so he can’t ignore her again. “What you’re suggesting, it’s too dangerous. Please… You’re not okay. You can’t be serious.”

And she looks at him; She looks at him from inside the armor he made her, enveloped by the suit he never thought she would wear, with the bright blue of the reactor glowing like a star mirroring his’, her eyes wide and desperate—

And Tony exhales far too harshly from his nostrils, eyes suddenly burning and a painful pressure building on his forehead and nose, a rush of emotion that threatens to spill unbidden down his cheeks, an old, bitter resentment and fear rearing its head from the depth of his chest, ready to strike. The anxiety that never fully abates, only sleeps, only waits; Until the next moment, the next beat.

(Same old song and dance.)

(Ending as it always does.)

“It’s our best chance.” He says, breathlessly.

“No.” Pepper exhales back. “It’s suicide, Tony. It’s too risky.”

Tony does not answer.

(He already made up his mind.)

“You can’t do this.” Pepper says, all sorrow and anger, desperation and hopelessness, an inescapable storm. “Not now. Not now, Tony. Please, any time but now.”

“I have to.” Tony insists,

And when no one speaks, when no one can find in themselves the strength to argue – because she is not wrong, they all know it, even if there are so many other things happening, she’s not wrong, but Tony isn't either.

She looks at him with wide, exasperated eyes, nearly pleading for his agreement; As if this is madness, as if hesitation is madness, as if she can't understand why he's saying this, why he's even considering such an outlandish option.

And that’s the problem.

She doesn’t understand.

Pepper opens her mouth, ready to scream, her usually meticulous composure completely shattered by the wrecking of the past days, the poorly concealed, agonizing uncertainty, the fear of being alone, of losing anyone else, so raw it nearly reminds of a burn directly to the skin. Searing, stinging. Painful.

But she doesn’t. She stops, and her breath hitches, and whatever she remembers, it makes her eyes flash in a way they almost glaze over for a brief second, before her entire body closes up like a door being slammed shut, the rampage about to come pouring out of her halting suddenly before a wall. She shakes with the force it takes her to hold it back. Tony is so terribly aware that they are being watched, that they all are witnessing this train wreck of a moment, and despite his resolve, shame coils hot in him, at the realization that they’re all seeing this.

Tony, disappointing Pepper once again.

(Always disappointing.)

Pepper reigns herself in with a long breath, dropping her hands from Tony’s arms and bringing them slowly to rest beside her, carefully neutral, but before Tony or anyone else can even attempt to find words that will lower the insufferable tension in this jet, Pepper asks, quietly and calmly, for Natasha to open the Quinjet door.

Natasha does, and no one stops her. Not even Tony.

Pepper slowly steps out, walking back towards the elevator and into the Compound, still in the armor.

She doesn’t look back, not even once.

“So.” Rocket drawls. “Is it always like this with you guys?”

Tony’s mouth twists in deep displeasure, and he says nothing.

Because yes. Yes. It’s always like that.

Tony despises himself for it.

 

Pepper was never the kind of person who paces.

She freezes. Like pausing a video mid-motion.

Tony finds her in their room, the door left open in her haste, but frozen still between the entrance and the bed. The armor is nowhere in sight. Even as her back is turned to him, her arms are crossed and her shoulders are tense, the tight coil she’s holding inside her clearly visible now she doesn’t have the firmness of metal around her to disguise her distress, and Tony sadly realizes she is shaking, her frame almost unnoticeably trembling despite the stiff posture, as if she’s barely containing herself.

This is not fair to her.

Tony has never been fair to her, whenever a risky situation is concerned.

But—

But this is his choice.

He also removes his armor, too uncomfortable with the idea of facing her while using it, uneven ground, and he closes the door behind him although he still feels like he’s being watched despite them both being alone. None of the others have followed him. No one had said a word. Tony is here exposing himself to Pepper, because he has to, because he’ll hurt her and he’ll let her hurt him back, he’ll accept the trading of blows without complaint because he knows he deserves it, and he will not try to stop it.

He knows how it goes.

“You can't keep doing this, Tony.” She tells him, in a sharp, firm tone. “You can't do this. Not again.”

“Pepper.” Tony says, and her name is an entire sentence, an entire speech far too familiar for it not to be recognizable, even in such a short breath, two syllables carrying the weight of an entire decade of a debate that never reached an end.

“There are other ways to fix this.” Pepper insists, and then, she finally turns to him, and to see her face is even worse than to stare at her back, because before she felt distant, and now, she feels so close, too close to his heart, to the gaping wound that simply refuses to heal, to that soft point in his carefully constructed façade that no one except her can reach. “You can't just jump into a spaceship and go to space looking for some… alientitan, or whatever, and try to steal the thing that caused this in the first place. You don’t even know where he is!”

“We have to find him—"

“And what are you going to do if you do find him?” Pepper interrupts, angrily, so terribly distressed. “Fight him again? Risk your life in space for a thing you don't even know if exists anymore?”

He knows it sounds bad. He knows it’s risky. But—

“What other option do I have?” Tony argues, defensively.

“You have options!” Pepper exclaims. “You always do! You just never choose them!”

(That is always her fear.)

(Options.)

(The options Tony chooses, over and over again.)

“What options!?” Tony raises his shoulders in questioning, feeling defensive, like he always does, because he's had this argument with her so many times that he can already predict what she's going to say.

“Options that will actually help the people out there!” Pepper points at the door, irritably. “We should be planning to expand the area of IntelliCrops, planning how to turn the city into a sustainable power source—"

“That sort of thing takes years—!”

“My point is that you should be thinking about what we can do here! For the people that need it!” Pepper cries, anguished. “Going to space to fight this… this alien enemy is crazy. It's crazy, Tony. You're going to risk your life to do something you don’t even know it'll work when you're the only one who can actually fix this is you stay.

(She doesn’t understand.)

And it’s a nice though. It really is.

They might even work – the IntelliCrops do work faster and better than most of many agricultural alternatives, genetically modified to stand extremely strenuous conditions, maybe even a mass genocide, Tony isn't sure. Maybe, with the right team of geneticists, Tony could modify to withstand the future conditions. Hell, the right team of geneticist would probably not even need him. God, it would be so much better if he knew where Cho is, if she’s even… if she’s even still around. Tony could sit down and read and learn about it, and do it himself, but he has no time for that. There are other geneticists and other emergency responders and other engineers and other specialists – but no one else knows about aliens and otherworldly threats like they do. He will help, he’ll do whatever he can, he will – but no one else but Tony can figure out a way to do this.

In any other moment, Tony would split himself in half, in however many pieces he needed, to help everyone that cried his name in plea, but he can’t, because he’s the Avengers’ engineer, he’s their visionary, their futurist, and if they’re going to find the purple bastard and take him down, and reverse what he has done, the Avengers need their engineer.

Pepper doesn’t accept that.

That’s the problem.

That’s always the problem.

“I can’t, Pep.” Tony says, distraughtly. “I can’t.

Same old song and dance.

Over the years, Tony and Pepper have fought a lot. Before they were a thing, they'd fight about meetings and stocks, about Tony's dismissal for the shareholders and Pepper's insanely rigid schedule, about how they had always been different in their approaches, two people who shouldn’t have worked well together but they did, because they made it work. It drove them crazy, but they did it. They became a force to be reckoned with – and it’s hard, not to fall in love with it. With the feeling of belonging against all odds, to defy fate and enjoy it.

To feel powerful and vulnerable at the same time. To have companionship. To be… seen.

But after Afghanistan, even as Tony realized he wanted Pepper Potts in his life not as his PA, but as his partner, his girlfriend, his wife, something changed. Tony changed.

It’s not that Tony became reckless – any footage on the Internet will be more than enough proof to show that Tony's self-preservation instincts are the worst ever registered since 1970, and he knows it –, he had been reckless from the start. And Pepper knew it. She knew he drank, he slept around, he didn't eat or rest right, he was irresponsible, he was a weapons manufacturer. A warmonger. She’d known that, she had known every single bullet point in his laundry list of character defects, every single crappy thing he’d done during his thirties, and—

And she decided she could accept it.

He had seen him past his persona. She had seen him up close. And still, she decided to stay.

At that time, Tony would have denied her nothing. Tony… Tony was so in love, so hopeless and desperate to keep her, so utterly entranced with this woman that we would have done anything she had asked without so much of a second thought.

Until he made Iron Man.

Tony had never been in any life-risking situation until then. Not really. He'd have Happy follow him everywhere, often accompanied by another four or five bodyguards, even though he didn’t need to, because no one cared enough about a spoiled, selfish brat of a billionaire to try anything like a hit on his life – it had just been a habit. His bodyguards helped keep stalkers or anyone too handsy away. To help him maintain an appearance, to make himself untouchable, and nothing more.

After Iron Man, it's like a line formed outside his house, threat after threat, all of them just waiting for the right moment to knock at the door and get the chance to finally finish what Afghanistan has started.

Tony knew this would happen. He’d known. The feeling had been creeping up to him since the cave, the array of weapons with his name embezzled on the side, a mockery of his dream, of his morality, and he just hadn’t realized it yet. Hard to do so, when he was counting the days until the Ten Rings finally decided they had enough of him, until he finished the Mark I, until he was out. But it had been there. It had been there when he shut down the manufacturing of weapons of SI, it had been there when he spent three weeks awake planning and creating Marks II and III and all the ones that followed.

It exploded in Gulmira. But the seed had already been there.

Tony had known that he was signing for a war he had no way of leaving. Tony came out as Iron Man as soon as he had the chance because he isn’t ashamed, he never will be ashamed of protecting people and doing all he can to keep the world safe. It’s not about fame. It’s not about glory, or status, no matter what he made people believe during that terrible year of the Stark Expo, because he just… he was just trying to have some happiness and adrenaline before the Palladium took him out. But it was never about that.

It’s always about ensuring the future. Ensuring people will be safe. To make up for his mistakes, to prove, to himself and to others, that Tony Stark can be good, to remind the world that it can be better and it can be improved and he’ll do all he can to make it happen.

Even if it means danger.

And this, Pepper doesn’t get. It frustrates him – even if he can understand her side, because he can, he’d also go mad with worry if she was the one going out to fight aliens and terrorists with no concrete proof she'd ever come back, really, he gets it –, but she doesn’t understand that Tony can't stop this. Not after what he saw in that cave, and the chance to stop it all so close to his own reach.

Tony is just trying to do good.

He’s more than just a warmonger, he can protect people, he always will, over and over again, and this is what he was born to do. He knows that, he knows it to be sure just as he knows numbers and equations, physics and energy – to him, it's just another one of the rules of his universe, of the forces that drive his life, the things that make him feel alive.

Tony believes in numbers. Tony believes in equations.

(Tony believes in heroes.)

(Dammit, he does, and screw Coulson for punching that into him.)

(Like a brand, like a tattoo forever marring Tony’s skin.)

(Something that’s now part of him.)

He doesn’t care if he puts his life on the line. He doesn’t care. Tony knows, with no reservations or doubts, that he is part of something bigger than himself, something he can contribute to, to ensure the world will be better and be safe, and that’s all he’s ever cared about. He’s a futurist – he’s the futurist; And he knows that in the grand scheme of things, his life over the life of millions, billions, where billions of possibilities can arise, billions of chances for other people to carry on and continue to keep the world turning faster and becoming brighter, Tony's life is a more than fair trade, and he's happy to give it and make it happen, no questions asked.

Pepper doesn’t get that.

Pepper wants him to compromise. Pepper wants him to stop and think it through, to find alternatives, to not do this, not sacrifice himself thoughtlessly.

She has a point. She does! Tony is not saying she doesn't.

Tony is not eager to die –

(Not now, anyway.)

(Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn't.)

He simply knows that it’s a possibility in his line of work, and he’s fine with that. Pepper isn’t.

And they never find a middle ground.

He will always come back. He always has. Tony destroyed his armors, but built the Iron Legion; He promised less involvement with the fight, but then he built Ultron; he promised to sign a document that would keep him from fighting when he shouldn’t, and then he fought his own teammate over the very same document.

Promises, promises. Tony is always breaking his promises to her.

(Because he doesn’t know how not to fight.)

“I can’t.” Tony admits pained. “I can't fix this, Pepper. Not here.”

“Why not?”

Tony runs his hands over his face, roughly, fingers digging into his eyes so forcefully he can see white spots all over when he opens them, unhinged. “We don't have time, honey. There’s no time. I can't fix anything of the planet will destroy itself before I get the chance to fix it.”

“We don't even know how much time we have—"

“We can’t risk it.” Tony argues forcefully. He gestures to her, his palms pressed together in a mocking gesture of prayer, but the begging tone in his voice is all real. “Please, you have to understand. This is not me risking my life for the hell of it. This time, there really is no choice.

“You always think you don’t have a choice, Tony!”

(Because it’s his fight.)

(It’s his burden.)

(Not hers.)

(Not anyone else’s.)

Tony could have chosen to tell her about the Palladium. About his PTSD. He could have told her, even if in the end she did end up finding out. He hadn’t needed to give the Mandarin his home address. He hadn’t needed to make so many suits, or make the Iron Legion. There were other heroes, after New York. Other heroes who worked as heroes full-time, not like Tony, who had a job, a billion-dollar company to take care of, and a girlfriend clearly uneasy with the consequences of his superhero gig. Tony wouldn’t have passed down the mantle, not while he was still able to fight – but as far as everyone else was concerned, the Iron Legion wasn’t necessary. Ultron wasn’t necessary. Tony had just been paranoid, and obsessed, and he had all chances to step back, to not get involved in the higher-risk missions, and he never took them.

Whatever Tony does, it always leads him back to the fight. Even when he tries to step away, it’s like his body pulls him back unconsciously.

But this is not the same.

It’s not.

(He could try.)

(He could design something to clear the atmosphere faster.)

(He could improve the IntelliCrops. He could share the workings of his own self-sustained power lines with the rest of the world.)

(He could try to restructure society.)

(He could.)

(It’s an option.)

(But it’s not—)

It’s not his choice.

“Pep.” Tony murmurs. “I’m sorry. I have to do this.”

Pepper lets out a sob, that drags and scratches her throat from the sound of it, the dry heaving and the shallow breath, and she covers her mouth with her hand and turns around to hide her face, but not fast enough that Tony can’t see the way her eyes well up with tears, not fast enough that he doesn’t see the pain he’s causing her, that it won’t haunt him until the day he dies.

“I’m sorry.” He say again, and it’s useless.

He’s sorry.

But he’ll do it.

He’ll do it anyway.

She doesn’t answer. She keeps her back to him. She trembles. Tony doesn’t know if the tears actually fall down or no, but it doesn’t matter, because he brought those tears to her eyes anyway and that’s bad enough on its own. There’s… There’s nothing else he can say. What else could he say? That he’ll be okay? That he’ll come back? That he didn’t want this? That he promises he’ll survive to come home to her, if she’ll have him?

Tony can’t promise that.

No matter how hard he wishes it were true, he has no way of knowing.

He would, though. It’s true. Tony would come back to her, if she wanted him to, after… after this is all over.

But he won’t ask her to take him back.

He has already hurt her enough.

With a whispered apology, Tony walks out dragging his feet, feeling like has just been hit by a goddamned train, head down and heart aching so terribly that it feels like he’s bleeding out again, gutted to the very core, when he bumps with Rhodey and Bruce at the corner of the corridor, both frozen still like deer caught on the headlights.

Tony stares at them. They stare back, silent and shocked, frozen stiff.

How much did you hear?” he asks, in an exhausted huff.

Both of them make the worst poker faces Tony has ever seen in his life, and he sighs.

“Okay, let's move on.”

“Tony.” Rhodey says kindly. “She has a point.”

“Yeah, so do I.” Tony childishly replies, but he doesn't care, because it’s true. “We can’t keep doing what we did today, spreading ourselves thin when we can go straight to the source of all these problems and reverse it.”

“I don’t know if we can actually do that, Tony.” Bruce counters. “We don’t know we’re Thanos is, we have no idea how to find him. And Thor was right – he has the Gauntlet. We don’t have anything strong enough to stop him.”

Not yet.

“And Pepper is not… wrong.” Bruce continues. “It’s not… the first something like this has happened in history. The world was once in a ten-year-long winter, with far less than what we have today, and we still made it out.”

“How many?” Tony snaps, impatiently. “How many made it out?”

“Not many.” Bruce admits, sorrowfully.

“Exactly.” Tony accuses. “So while we sit here, arguing about this, people are dying out there, and we have no way of stopping it. Finding him and bringing everyone back is the best way to make this right. It fixes everything, and no one dies.”

Rhodey and Bruce watch him quietly, their mouths twisting in uncertainty, and Tony can’t stand to be here and watch them agonize over it when the roar of emotions and adrenaline are wreaking havoc inside his bruised ribs, with the scorching fire of vengeance and the wallow of hurt crying in echoes inside his mind, when he should be moving. He should be planning.

He should be fixing this.

Tony dodges them and their pitiful stares, uncaring, unable to accept their sympathy, and marches back into the common area to find the others talking anxiously, exchanging rapid words and wild hand gestures, with his breathing ragged from distress and hands closed into determined fists, steel resolution solid in his spine.

This is his choice.

“You think it’s possible?” Natasha asks, as soon as Tony is in her line of sight. Her face is smeared with soot. “To bring them back?”

Tony takes in a deep breath, steeling himself for this conversation, the intensity of their gazes striking him with the same heat the repulsors of the armor produce. “The Gauntlet took them away. Nothing says it couldn’t bring them back.”

“We don’t know how that thing works, to be honest.” Bruce mumbles from somewhere behind him, but it’s not exactly a protest.

“What we know is that that thing is the most powerful artifact in the universe. Whether it’s magic, or science, or whatever the hell it is, it holds more power than anything else, and if something is gonna be able to bring back four billion people it’s going to be that Gauntlet.”

“So you’re saying you want to steal it from him.” Rogers says, half inquiry, half something else, something Tony has no time to overanalyze right now, not when he feels like there’s molten lava running through his veins.

“He stole the Stones from us first.” Tony bites. “Feel like it’s a fair trade.”

“Is it even possible?” Rocket asks.

“It is.”  Tony confesses. “We nearly had it. Me and… the others. The Guardians. Strange. We had him trapped and almost got the thing off his hand. He got loose, but it’s possible. We just have to hold him off.”

“He is stronger than all of us combined.” Natasha begrudgingly admits.

“We don’t have to be stronger, we just need to be faster.”

“Aren’t you all forgetting something?”

They all go quiet, and they turn to Rocket with questioning stares.

“Even if we steal that gauntlet from him, and don’t die in the process, we don’t know it that thing can stand a second snap.” Rocket reminds them. “Thor said it – it was nearly broken. What’s gonna happen if we try to use it and it explodes in our hands?”

“You think we shouldn’t use it?” Rogers arches one eyebrow, face hard.

“I’m sayin’ we should have a backup, in case something bad happens to that one.”

“You want to build our own Gauntlet.” Tony breathlessly says. “Do you know how to do one?”

“No, but Thor knows someone who does.”

Thor, who had been sitting silently and watched carefully, stiffens at the sudden attention, his eyes gleaming with some sorrowful emotion too grand for them to comprehend, but he does stand up and faces them to say:

“There’s a forge, in a place not many know that exists. It was the home of the Dwarves, the mightiest blacksmiths of all Nine Realms. Eitri, the Dwarf King, said Thanos forced him to make the Gauntlet in exchange for the life of his people.”

The pain in his voice is enough clue to how well that bargain had ended.

“He was the last one left when he got there.”

“Is he alive?” Rogers asks, quietly.

“He was, until we left. He… He made me this.” Thor swings the axe around, throwing it quickly in the air before catching it again, as if he’s still getting acquainted with the weight of it. “He said he’d rather stay at the forge and wait for our return. But with Thanos’ decimation, I don’t know if he survived. Or even if he could forge another Gauntlet. Thanos took his hands away.”

“Thor, we need to find him.” Tony presses, as kindly as he can. “If he’s still alive, he might be the only one who can help us build this thing.”

Thor nods slowly. “As soon as the sun rises, I will go to the forge and ask for his help. Stormbreaker can travel through the Realms as fast as the Bifrost could. If Eitri is still there, he should be able to aid us in building another Infinity Gauntlet.”

Tony exhales in deep relief, and he whispers a grateful reply, his shoulders slumping a little in response to Thor’s careful nod of recognition.

“We also need to worry about the people out there, Tony. Isn’t that what we agreed on?” Bruce reminds him, softly.

“We will.” Tony assures. “FRIDAY is working on finding surviving SHIELD agents and bringing them all to comms. Aren’t you, FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Boss.” FRIDAY chips in efficiently.

“What about government? Any idea what happened?”

“I believe we still have open lines to thirty-nine nations. I am currently working on opening on seven channels more.” FRIDAY reports. “I also have guaranteed access to all functioning SHIELD satellites, as requested by Agent Romanov.”

“What message should we send?” Tony asks Natasha.

“Tell them all to check in. We’re doing a count of how many we have left.” Natasha replies. “Send in ID and location, and wait for further instruction.”

“Until we get back to them, they are to stay inside, somewhere safe.” Rogers adds. “If they have eyes on civilians, they should try to stay together. Avoid being alone. Stay warm, and gather food.”

“Got that, FRI?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“We should send them a message.” Natasha suggests, thoughtfully. “To everyone. Explain what happened. If there’s anyone out there who doesn’t know why they suddenly saw a friend turn to ash, they need to know.”

Rhodey sighs heavily. “She’s right.”

Tony’s mouth twists in frustration, his head pounding with exhaustion, and yet, he is the one who turns and says:

“You wanna get on that, Rogers?”

Rogers’ eyes turn sharply to Tony’s. “Me?”

“Would you rather have Build-A-Bear do it?” Tony vaguely gestures in Rocket’s direction, tired. “Everyone knows Captain America. They’ll recognize you. They need a familiar face right now.”

(Someone they can trust.)

That is a sentence Tony won’t say out loud.

“We’ve been hiding for two years, Tony.”

Tony resists the urge to throw it at his face that that is his own damn fault, and says instead:

“You’re the one who makes the speeches.” His voice is sarcastic, nearly dismissive, and when Rogers’ jaw squeezes tight in that old quirk of his, the one Tony has come to associate with the imminence of an argument, he nearly regrets poking at this sore wound right at this moment, but in all truth, he’s too tired to care. “You’ll be better at it than any of us will.”

Rogers looks at him like he wants to say a thousand things, and nearly all of them would for sure make Tony fume with anger, but in the end, none of them make it past his lips.

“Okay.” Rogers agrees. “I will.”

And the agreement – the sensation of accomplishment, of a small, minuscule victory in the middle of his mess, the tentative step forward in the right direction, it’s the only thing that keeps Tony from shattering where he stands. He’s exhausted. He’s so, so tired. His mind feels like it’s overheating, trying to run in too many directions at once, flooding with plans and to-do lists and pressing concerns, one trampling the other, never standing still.

His armor will have to be improved.

He doesn’t know how yet, but it will. He has to work on that, fast. Review footage from the armor, see what was effective or not, make it stronger. He’s not looking forward to it. He knows what he’ll see in that footage. He knows he’ll see—

He also needs to fix the ship, probably. The Benatar. That thing is not in a very good state. Nebula can probably help, maybe Rocket as well, if he knows the thing well enough. They’ll need it, so they can… go to space. Jesus, the very idea of it makes a shiver run down his spine.

Maybe Nebula can start working on it while Tony goes downstairs and checks the schematics for the IntelliCrops. Bruce could get a head start on reading some research on atmospheric pollution and proposed solutions to global sunlight dimming. There’s probably a lot of material there. Maybe not a functional, quick solution, but Tony can make it work.

It’s best if Tony heads down to the lab. Right away.

(Not like he can go back to his room tonight.)

He’s about to say so – that he’ll be leaving to his lab, that is, and he’ll leave handling Rogers to Natasha, because Tony is all wiped out for today –, when suddenly—

“Boss?” FRIDAY interrupts.

“Yeah?”

FRIDAY makes a pause, and then, firmly, says:

“I have located May Parker.”

Tony halts.

Tony—

 

(He promised.)

 

(He promised to keep the kid safe.)

 

(Oh God, what will he tell her?)

 

(How can he—)

 

(Pete is gone.)

 

(He’s gone, and Tony failed, how can he tell her that?)

 

(His aunt—)

 

(May Parker.)

 

(Oh fuck, May Parker.)

 

“Tony?” Rogers says, strong voice cutting deep through Tony’s despair, and Tony raises his eyes to look at him and realizes his vision is blurred, his eyes burning with tears, his entire body shaking and sweating cold, breath stuttering in his throat.

“I need to go.” Tony chokes. “You make the— Make the thing. Make… I have to go. I have to—"

And Tony turns and runs, runs, runs—

Runs as the armor envelops him quickly and efficiently, launching him into the air, the repulsors of the boots flaring hot and bright to push him forward faster and faster, away from the staring eyes, but straight into what feels like the jaws of death. He needs to go, he doesn’t want to, he needs to, he needs to tell her, she’ll hate him for it—

He needs to tell her.

And when he’s mid-flight, he cries.

 

She’s in Queens.

Exactly where she was before. Where Pete was supposed to be.

Home.

She sees him, eyes wide and mouth parted in a gasp, when she opens the door. She’s wearing a jacket inside. Her apartment is freezing cold.

Tony can only stand there, trembling, clenching his jaw so hard it hurts.

He is alone in this hallway.

He shouldn’t be.

“Is he—?” She starts, but the words fade out in a jagged edge, like a record scratching, terror hiding beneath a frail attempt of composure; the terrible, terrible anticipation, the desperate hope, the nearly hopeless question.

Tony presses his lips together, fighting a scream, and shakes his head.

No.

And May Parker breaks down in front of him, and all Tony can do is watch.

 

She is a nurse, Tony remembers.

Fierce, resilient. Wants to help. Knows first aid.

She says, in a whisper, after the tears have already stolen almost all of her voice away, that she has been helping whoever she can.

She almost went back to the hospital, she tells him. She was so worried. Worried for the seniors and the children. For her colleagues. For everyone.

But she didn’t.

She kept the lights on. The windows open. She knew about him.

She had been waiting for him to come home.

 

A sniff. “Was it the dust?”

A pause. A shaky breath. “…Yeah.”

A tear. A sob.

Silence.

(It can’t end like this.)

(It can’t, it can’t—)

(It can’t—)

(The kid—)

“I’ll bring him back.”

A pause.

A look.

A tear. Two.

“I’ll bring him back.” He croaks. “I don’t know how yet, but I’ll find a way. I promise.”

 

He promises.

 

 

He swears on his life.

 

 

What time is it? He doesn’t know.

It’s dark outside.

It’s dark inside too.

Tony is not sure where he’s going.

“Tony?” Says a soft voice, so gentle and so kind, a little rough around the edges. It’s full of promises of comfort, of caring concern, and it makes Tony freeze, because his body can’t properly compute it right now. The world feels to hostile. Sharp. Cold. The warmth is foreign, unexpected, and its presence catches him so off guard he feels like he’s about to fall, to collapse, unable to hold himself up. “Are you okay?”

Is he okay?

Is he—

No.

No.

He’s not.

Tony closes his eyes, head hanging low, and when he tries to breathe, tries to open his mouth to speak, what comes out is a sob, a distorted sound losing itself around the agony, and it echoes through the walls in the most agonizing way, piercing his ears.

“Come here.” She says and – and her arms are around him, gentle and warm, loving, protecting, and Tony doesn’t deserve it but he melts into the embrace anyway, he crumbles and falls, the shaky foundation of the walls around his heart tumbling down so fast they crash and burn inside, and he quakes, and shivers, and wails.

“The kid, Pep.” Tony whispers, and holds her tight, and cries, and – “I—"

(He lost.)

(He lost the fight.)

(He lost the kid.)

(He promised.)

Tony cries into her shoulder for what feels like a lifetime.

He cries for the kid.

He cries because he feels like he has lost a part of himself with Peter, a hole gaping inside his chest in a shape no one else can fill, the space between his arms still feeling hollow and empty even as Pepper occupies the space with her own frame. Tony feels like his hands are still stained with his ashes. His muscles want to squeeze around a person who is no longer there, to comfort and be comforted by someone that can’t be reached, and he mourns, he mourns for the kid he loved so much he thought of like his own, the kid who made him wish for family.

Tony has lost him.

Tony has lost his son.

Pepper holds him. Cradles his head. Runs her fingers through his hair.

Guides him to bed. Lays down with him.

Cries quietly.

They cry into the darkness in silence. They cry until there’s no tears left to spill, their bodies exhausted and wrung to all capacity, hollow and empty. Inert. The bed is cold and the room is colder, and they both are sweaty and trembling in each other’s embrace, weak comfort and thin discomfort existing in the same space, drowned beneath a thick layer of dull throbbing pain pounding into their temples.

They do not sleep.

“Tony.” Pepper calls, hoarsely, and Tony listens.

He doesn’t move.

But he listens.

“I know what you want to do, Tony.” She tells him, softly. “And I know why you want to do it. I know. But I…”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut.

He knows.

He thinks of Pepper, despairing on a rooftop, telling him she’ll quit because every moment with him feels like dog years. He thinks of her quitting because she sees the bullet holes in his armor and can’t stand the idea that he’ll die for it. He thinks of her quitting when his nightmares woke her up and his armor threatened her for trying to keep him safe, like it had a life of its own, like Iron Man itself had been trying to stop her from stopping Tony.

He thinks of May Parker, who could have slapped him in the face, could have screamed, could have killed him, but didn’t. Who knew about her nephew being too strong, too eager, too… heroic, to stand still, and had loved him too much to make him quit. Had despaired. Had hoped he’d always come back.

Until he didn’t.

“I believe in you.” Pepper confesses. “I know you. I know you won’t be able to sleep until you fix this.”

It’s true.

He won’t.

“But please try.” She begs, and holds him tighter. “Please try to find another way. I can’t lose you too. I can’t watch you do this again.”

He’ll try.

Tony will try. He owes her that. He loves her, he loves her, and for her, he will try.

But Tony has made his choice.

He will reverse this. He will bring them back.

(He’ll bring his kid back.)

(His kid.)

(He will bring his kid back.)

No matter the danger. Whatever it takes.

He doesn’t care.

He will bring them back.

And it kills him to know that Pepper knows it too. That she knows what it might cost.

Because she loves him. Loves him too much to make him quit. Loves him too much to be blind to who he is, to what he needs to do, and what it means to him.

She wants him to stay, because she knows that if he goes, this might be finally it.

The day when she’ll wait for him to come back.

Until she finds out he won’t.

Notes:

We're almost done with Pepper, my friends. I told you it wouldn't be easy. But it is necessary, because this issue has dragged on for far too long, and although there's a universe out there where they might've been able to surpass this in a softer, kinder way, this isn't that universe. Sometimes, it hurts. I'm not afraid of showing that, because if we're dealing with truth, then we have to face it all. My world is not very kind, I'm afraid.

We'll go back to some plot next time! As we step a little further into this journey, we'll need some clever minds to aid Tony in his plan to find and defeat Thanos - a genius is always great, but hell, two, three, maybe four, is even better than one, don't you think? ;) So we will start discussing them, in the next chapter! I hope you're excited for it! The MCU has given us so much information they never used, I can't wait to put it all into action for you guys. It's going to be very fun!

Lastly, I would like to apologize to all left a comment on the previous chapter that I haven't replied to yet - Don't worry, I read them all and I'm very happy and grateful to each and every one of you, I promise! I love you guys. But it is finals week and as you can imagine, I am slowly dying. Please, send help. I'll get back to you as soon as I can, every single one of you, and until I do, I hope you can enjoy this chapter and some of my other fics, if you'd like.

Thank you all so much once again <3 I'll see you in the next one.

Chapter 8: Chapter 8

Notes:

How about some plot? ;)

We're gonna get a little technical from this chapter on. We still have to finish talking about Pepper, of course, but we can't forget that the world is ending, now, can we? We have to do something about that. So we will!

As I said, no movie in this franchise is safe from me.

This chapter also includes an extra treat: the introductions of a few characters I'm very eager to discuss a little more. Well, it'll be a treat for me. I wonder how you are going to feel about it when we get there. There sure will be some diverging opinions, I suspect. But since when am I known for avoiding delicate topics? They won't have entire arcs of their own, unfortunately - but see if that can stop me from including them and stirring the pot, just because I can. I said no stone unturned. I'm going to keep that promise.

Our heroes have a lot of work ahead of them.

This is just a taste of it.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The next day begins with a shift.

Quiet. Barely noticeable.

Tony feels it from within.

Pepper is no longer in bed with him when he wakes up. Her side of the bed is cold. He feels her absence with a pang of bitterness, a bad taste at the bad of his tongue, a terrible sensation together with the dryness of his mouth. He hasn’t rested at all. To wake up alone after Pepper’s whispers in the night before, after feeling the sharp claws of grief maiming him from the inside, threatening to shatter him, he feels like he doesn’t belong in his own body. With the chaos that raged inside him when it was dark – when he wakes up and the cold sunlight seeps in through the glass, silent, almost kind in its softness, it all feels like an illusion. A stranger living in his skin. The ache in his chest throbs in a distant, muffled beat, almost familiar, with the soreness of his muscles, the haze of dread clouding his thoughts, with the taste of salt in his mouth.

He wants to ask FRIDAY where Pepper went.

He doesn’t.

He doesn’t think he’s strong enough to hear it yet.

So he goes on alone. He tells himself that he’ll need to get used to it, and it hurts to think about, but he can’t help it. It’s what being too vulnerable does to him. Makes the thoughts louder. Harder to ignore. Tony sighs and rubs his hands on his face, wishing he could wipe away the exhaustion, wishing he could just sleep, and pretend there isn’t a world out there who needs his help. He wishes, even if it’s just for a split second of a moment, that he could ask FRIDAY to call Pepper and ask her to come back to bed. To bundle with her beneath the sheets and sleep for a week, to silently wrap her arms around him and rest easy knowing she’s right there, that they are safe, and he still has her.

But he can’t.

Because he still feels hollow. His skin is still pulling tight when he sniffs and scrunches his eyes shut, his eyes still burn with the feeling of tears.

His kid still isn’t here. So he can’t stop.

He is still feeling like his eyes are trying to stay glued together as he walks towards the kitchen to grab some food, a little sore and gross from the feeling of crying himself to sleep, when he walks into the common area, still drowsy and completely unprepared, and finds, of all people—

Clint Barton—

(Wha—)

(When in the fuck—)

Clint Barton

Sitting by the desk, head bowed low and close together to Natasha, his face scrunched in pain.

Oh God, Barton.

And something inside Tony’s head sparks with a flare of realization, something so quick that its gone before he can properly grasp it, and it only leaves him open mouthed and awkward by the entrance, body stiff as a board, like an old man who has just glimpsed a ghost of his long gone past.

Barton. He’s alive. He’s here.

Christ, Natasha found him.

"Barton." Tony exhales, shocked, before he can think better of it.

His voice breaks the bubble Natasha and Barton had built around themselves, rips through it like a goddamned weapon, through the invisible wall of secrecy created by their proximity and the breathlessness of their whispers, by the very feel of heaviness in the air between them as they locked eyes. Natasha’s eyes are quick to snap to his, not quite surprised, but distraughtly vulnerable; While Barton, Jesus Christ, Barton, slides his gaze to Tony’s the way a rusty hinge would work, stuttering every inch of the way, like it’s resisting the very movement its meant to do.

It’s wildly uncomfortable, to the point of feeling so deeply, intensely wrong. When they do finally meet eyes, Barton’s gaze feels like a snowy mountain top. Cold, distant, with a wave of fog clouding it, blocking everything.

Tony has never seen him look like this.

Not even when he was under Loki’s mind control.

"Stark." He says, and his voice has no emotion to it. No anger, no warmth, no nothing. If not for the use of his name, Tony would almost think Barton doesn’t recognize him.

"What are you doing here?" Tony asks, so taken aback he doesn’t really think what he’s asking until it leaves his mouth.

Barton’s mouth thins as he presses his lips together, eyes going misty, and he replies, in a rough voice:

"Got nowhere else to go."

“Your family—” Tony stutters, and the rest of the words get trapped in his throat, and he can’t force them out.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

His wife. His children.

(Children.)

(Thanos took children.)

(All of those people, all those kids—!)

"I'm sorry." Tony chokes, gulping forcefully to try and push down the odd feeling of swelling he feels inside his mouth, the strength with which the grief of the sudden bad news hits him when he’s totally unprepared.

Barton looks like hell. There is no fight in him that Tony can see. His eyes are blank. Tony has – The last Tony had seen him, it had been through heavy bars and bulletproof glass, with his arm on a sling and a bruise throbbing in his face, with guilt weighing on his shoulders, and Barton had been snarling at his face, mocking him, trapped like a criminal in a cell that was never meant for him. For any of them. Barton had looked at Tony like Tony had been the filthiest thing he had ever seen, a low bastard who had somehow betrayed him, like that was all Tony ever amounted to – a traitor. Tony still feels his stomach churn when he remembers it. But there had been emotion, there had been something alive inside him, and now, all Tony sees before him is a husk of a man, someone who, oh fuck, has also lost it all in this mess, who is alone, and has nothing else inside him to keep him present.

Tony has no right to feel like he should walk up to him and lay a hand on his shoulder, but he does. Christ, he wishes he could do something, but he knows it’s not his place. He has no right. Even if the pain in Tony’s chest seems like it echoes in Barton’s own, Tony cannot move, because what sort comfort can he offer?

Natasha reaches out and grabs Barton’s hand with a grip so strong it could hurt, and it probably does, but Barton does nothing but turn his hand and hold her back with the same strength, so much that his fingers are trembling, and he lowers his gaze, turning his head away from both Tony and Natasha, looking at the floor.

"I saw the message on a store. All screens and radios were playing it. When I saw Cap I... I called. Nat convinced me to come."

Tony hadn't seen the message. The image of May Parker crying on her couch, back hunched and face hidden in her shaking hands, sobs wrecking her frame, overtakes Tony’s head and it makes him feel like absolute shit, makes his knees feel weak, and it completely muffles the memory that Rogers was supposed to be reaching out for survivors while Tony was out. He’ll see it later. He’s just –

Well. He’s glad Barton is alive. He is. He’s just not sure if he should say it. He doesn’t know how Barton will react if he does.

“Are you hurt?” Tony asks instead, his gaze running through Barton head to toe, eyes sharp on any indication of an injury, but Barton simply takes in a deep breath and shakes his head. Natasha squeezes Barton’s hand even tighter and turns to Tony with a look in her eyes that makes very clear that she needs him to stay away, and Tony nods in agreement and takes a step back.

"We got replies from nearly two thousand agents, and we might have more incoming in the next hours." Natasha quietly informs him, her tone all business, diverging the attention of the conversation to a different topic. “Steve, Rhodes and Pepper are downstairs, talking to the agents who made it here.”

“How many?” Tony asks, accepting the change in the subject easily.

“Seventy-two, last I heard.” Natasha signals to him with her chin. “Go. Steve will want to see you.”

Tony has no idea why the hell Rogers would want to see him, him specifically, but he does need to head down and see what’s going on – why had FRIDAY not informed him as soon as the first responder showed up? Suddenly, the absence of Pepper on his side seems less lonely and much more pressing. Tony leaves with a final nod and a quick glance at Barton, who still sits curled in on itself like he’s trying to disappear, and Natasha wraps her free arm around his shoulders and pulls him to a half-hug that makes Barton’s shoulders hitch in a sob Tony can’t hear.

He turns around.

This is not a moment he’s allowed to be a part of.

Hunger and lethargy become unimportant immediately. Tony knows they are probably by the lower entrance, one of the only places that are wide enough to accommodate all the people who have come answering Rogers’ call, and it’s no surprise that when the elevator doors open, the sound of many anxious and rapid voices find him in an echo, overwhelming I comparison to the dreadful silence of the previous days, a rush of stimuli Tony was not ready to confront so suddenly after the previous night.

The sight of a crowd makes a rush of adrenaline pump into his veins, a brief moment of confusion quickly drowned beneath a dangerous sense of hope, the faint but so tempting possibilities of building a force large and powerful enough to actually pull this off, to manage to complete both missions without having to give any of them up.

Hope is such a dangerous thing.

Tony is glad he still has it.

He steps closer, and then he realizes that in front of this crowd, talking amongst themselves, are Pepper, Rhodey, Rogers, and two other people. Tony doesn’t get a good look on their faces from where he’s standing, but even before he can try to get a glimpse, he steps close enough to attract attention, and someone in the crowd notices him. And slowly, they all do.

Tony stares at them as they stare back, as if they are all shocked to be here, his steps unconsciously slowing down to take in the wave in which the crowd gains awareness of his presence, in shocked whispers and startled motions, in wide-eyed gazes and head raising in surprised anticipation. To see this crowd turn in his direction, to watch him walk towards them like he is some sort of spirit they have never expected to see made flesh – is a grim, surprising, scary reminder that they all probably thought he was dead, and now they are watching him as if he’s raising from the grave. Tony, who had once relished in the fact he was the personification of the phoenix, who believed rebirth was the sole purpose of his existence, that resurgence from the ashes was his mission, his destiny, now… Now it feels like disappointment, like he’s disappointed them, because he didn’t fulfill his promise, and they still don’t realize how deeply the failed. He has no right to their breathless surprise. He has done nothing to earn it.

Their movement attracts the attention of the group at the front too. He’s thankful for the distraction.

“Tony.” Both Pepper and Rogers call out when they see him, again, like his name is an entire sentence, too many feelings and too much meaning packed into two mere syllables, too many questions Tony has no way of answering with his lungs being so breathless.

“We have people.” Tony lamely replies, striding quickly towards them, itching to not be under the scrutinizing, pointed stare of the crowd. Tony goes directly to Pepper’s side, an instinct too old to avoid, but he only belatedly realizes that also puts him next to Rogers, and it’s too late to go around and stay next to Rhodey without being glaringly obvious about it.

It’s Mr. Stark! He hears someone exclaim, followed by other rushed whispers of Mr. Stark!, and We still have Iron Man, and, perhaps the most unexpected response ever, a loud and relieved Thank God.

“We do.” Rogers replies a beat too late, voice perfectly leveled, but body language extremely tight and tense. “A few more just arrived. We’re rounding on eighty people so far.”

“Quick response.” Tony nonsensically replies, before he snaps a little more awake, more aware, and his brain actually provides a question that is relevant. “What do they have for us?”

“Basically the same report, over and over again.” Rhodey replies frustratedly, his gaze sweeping swiftly through the people gathered before them, in a pondering manner. “They said they saw a lot of accidents, almost all of them. Some people found civilians and instructed them to stay together and indoors. A few of them—”

He pauses, and looks around for someone quickly, until he find a group standing by the left, talking between themselves in hushed, frantic tones.

“Them, those four.” Rhodey points to them discretely. “They said they passed a place, it looked like a school, but there was someone inside screaming about… Judgment Day.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Tony idiotically replies.

“They looked inside, but they were thrown out.” Rhodey says, “It was just… a couple of families. Adults and children. They were praying. But it all looked very…”

“Intense.” Pepper offers, with a pointed look in Tony’s direction, a look that means so much more than what she actually says. “Dangerous.”

They need to talk. He and Pepper.

They… They just need to talk.

“I’m…” Tony stutters, swiping his tongue across his chapped bottom lip, discomfort tight in his belly. “I’m not sure how we’re supposed to deal with that.”

“You’re not.” A voice interrupts, kind but undoubtedly firm, making itself known with no intentions of being ignored. Somewhat irritated, even. Fair, considering that Tony suddenly realizes he had been completely ignoring the other two people present in the group before he arrived, unknowingly. He takes a moment to look at them, really look, and a flash of recognition strikes through him quick and sharp, breath getting caught in his lungs.  

“Carter.” Tony says, a breathless exhale of surprise escaping his lips. “Right? Sharon. Agent 13.”

“That’s me.” Carter, Tony remembers her, blonde hair and sharp eyes, smile always sitting on the edge of gentle and dangerous, and Tony actually feels some measure of relief bloom inside him at the sight of her. He knows her, he knows what she can do, and she is good. Christ, he’s glad she’s here. She survived. “I’m glad to see you with us, Mr. Stark. It’s good to see you safe.”

“You too, Agent.” Tony says, with full honesty, even though he suspects there’s not a single thing that could have wiped Agent Carter from this Earth against her will, from her strong posture and unwavering will.

Tony hasn’t seen her in years, but he remembers her well.

“Have you – You have any news for us?”

“Nothing you don’t already have.” Carter says begrudgingly, as if the lack of extra information personally offends her. “Captain Rogers has given us a run-down of the situation, and we’re going to be dividing into units to make sure we cover ground more efficiently.”

“You told them?” Tony asks Rogers, half in surprise, but with an edge of sharp judgment sneaking into his words without his permission.

“Just us.” The man next to Carter says, in a quick, almost skittish tone, before taking half a step forward to make himself a little more noticeable. “Mr. Stark, I’m not sure you remember me, my name is—"

“Everett Ross.” Tony’s brain immediately supplies, and it comes out of his mouth just as fast, the memory clicking with certainty in his head. “Yeah, I remember you. CIA.”

“That’s right.”

Tony does remember. He remembers both of them. He remembers them from the Accords, from Vienna and from Washington, from Thunderbolt Ross and Zemo and so many other shitty things. He can’t help but suppress a laugh at the sheer irony of it, of having them here, in this moment, when Rogers and his merry band are back. Christ, Barton is upstairs now too. Though… Though Tony knows he cannot expect Wilson or Maximoff to ever show up, because – because they’re gone, and… And now it’s too late for that.

But Tony remembers good things too. Sharon Carter is an exceptional agent, delightfully professional and incredibly skillful, and she is firm and no doubt a good fighter. Putting her in charge of a unit would be incredibly helpful. They have never worked directly with one another, always trapped with the interference of Ross between them, the chaos of finding Barnes – Zemo – in Vienna and holding back the UN and finding Rogers and Wilson, all at once, it wasn’t the best scenario to build a nice and cohesive workflow, but Tony had seen enough. Enough to trust that she is good at her job, and a good person.

A person with firmness to follow her moral code, for sure. Not that Tony would drag her into other matters. He has no proof. No one does. But the rumors of her involvement with the disappearance of Rogers’ shield and Wilson’s armor right before Leipzig, then Carter’s sudden drop off the radar for weeks, and everything – It’s not hard to guess.

Well. If anything, she acted. She acted to do something she thought it would help.

That’s what matters now.

Leipzig seems like a lifetime ago, anyway.

Everett Ross, however, Tony knows even less about. He knows he was the one in charge of Zemo after T’Challa dropped him off at CIA’s doorstep wrapped like a Christmas present, and in doing so, he got himself involved in some mediation business between CIA and the UN. He’s Air Force, if Tony’s not wrong. Like Rhodey. Tony can see why he and Carter seem to be teaming up instinctively in this. The guy clearly must be good, because Ross let him into some important business with little to no fuss, which is rare, knowing the old bastard, and he is… almost astonishingly diligent, even faced with the terrible odds of his current mission.

Tony, silently, hopes he doesn’t lose that in the middle of the way. He wishes he could feel the drive and the almost carefree confidence Agent Ross seems to have in spades.

“Where’s your boss?” Tony asks, because if no one else will, he has to. He has to ask.

As much as he doesn’t care, he can’t not care. He can’t. If he doesn’t, if he’s not paying attention; If anyone, anywhere, decides to revive this dispute just for the sake of trying to gain power over them, nevermind the entire apocalypse that’s happening out there… They can’t have that. They can’t have anyone, not even the likes of General Ross, messing with the already far too delicate peace they have silently agreed to keep in order to find a solution to this. It’s no more than a thin veil of appeasement, an excuse of forgiveness, and Tony can’t have anyone disturbing that on top of everything else, or else he won’t be able to take it.

 “We don’t know.” Everett Ross tells him, with startling honesty. “No one can find him. But if we do find him, Mr. Stark, it would not be a problem.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, taken aback by the sheer earnestness of the man.

“We are here to answer the distress call that was sent to us. We only want to understand what we’re dealing with, so we can help the people out there.” Ross – urgh, weird, no-good comparison; maybe he should just call him Agent –, Agent Ross affirms with a confidence so crystal clear that is honestly kind of hard not to feel a little swept away by his conviction.

“Do you have a plan?” Tony asks.

“Captain Rogers was helping us organize into teams so we can divide our tasks better.” Agent Ross informs.

“There’s a few bases we need to cover.” Pepper adds, in a quick and efficient commentary, a swift addition that reminds Tony of the way she handles a boardroom. “Find civilians, organize them in teams, look for survivors in accident sites. Distribution of food. Gather a med team and create a basic rescue plan.”

“We have enough people to divide in five teams.” Rhodey continues. “Between recon, field action, rescue and first aid.”

“Some of them are from R&D and tech, too.” Agent Ross informs him. “Perhaps you’d know what’s the best priority for those guys, while we work on the field.”

“Comms.” Tony immediately replies. “We need to bring power back to the city. We need it for heaters, for water distribution, for everything. Filters, too!”

“Filters?” They ask, confused by his sudden outburst.

“We’re gonna need air filters, as many as possible, as soon as possible. That should be a good start, before we come up with something faster.”

“Like air-conditioners?” Agent Ross insists, still clearly confused.

“Bigger. Industrial size. Maybe bigger than that, even.” Tony frantically tells them. “That’s the first thing we need.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, Mr. Stark, but maybe they can help you with those.” Agent Ross motions to the crowd behind them, somewhat to the left, where Tony imagines the R&D personnel might be hiding behind the mob of field agents.

“They can have access to the labs.” Tony guarantees.

“With our resources and FRIDAY they should be able to work on something while you all are out there.” Pepper amends.

“I’ll let them know.” Agent Ross nods firmly, his eyes bright with determination, and he gives a quick glance to all in the group as a quick goodbye, before muttering a very soft excuse me and heading down towards the crowd.

“We will connect you all to the comms of the Compound, so you can contact us faster.” Pepper continues, taking advantage of the lull in the discussion to shift her attention to Agent Carter, who is still standing with them. “FRIDAY can also help with the missions outside. If there’s any emergencies, all you need to do is let us know and we’ll come as soon as we can.”

Tony is surprised, if not a little overwhelmed with how quickly and methodically Pepper is handling this situation, unable to make complete sense of what he’s seeing; And he is still mulling over it when Agent Carter also gives Pepper a nod and gives her thanks, before shifting in her place as if preparing to leave.

But then she stops for a second, and asks, “Will you be joining us in recon?”

“Not yet.” Rhodey replies instead. “We’re waiting for some additional information, and we might still hang here for a few hours to see if it arrives. We’ll get in contact if anything changes.”

Carter nods in agreement. “Got it.”

“I will be supervising contact between you and the Compound.” Pepper tells Carter, taking Tony completely by surprise. “I’ll do my best to make sure the R&D will have what they need to work with around here, we could use the engineers, but I’ll keep my eyes open for you too, in case you need help out there. That includes emergencies, if you need evacuation or an extra hand. Just let me know, and I’ll provide help as soon as possible.”

Tony fumbles, and he leans in closer to her ear so he can whisper, without sounding much like an idiot out loud. “Wait, what do you mean?”

Agent Carter raises her eyebrows after a long blink, but then an almost imperceptible smile pulls at the corner of her lips, and her eyes spark with an intense emotion; and with one final nod and parting thanks, she goes too, lingering for the briefest of seconds, throwing a glance in Rogers’ direction in a way that is not at all very subtle, a low sense of curiosity, but Rogers only nods at her and she accepts this, her hair wiping gracefully as she turns away, her strides large and sure as she walks towards Agent Ross.

Tony doesn’t even take time to think about what that was.

(He knows what it was.)

(Confirmation.)

(That’s what that was.)

He’s far more concerned with turning to Pepper and asking, incredibly confused, “You going out there with them?”

“No, Tony.” Pepper says, in a small sigh. “It’s okay, I can help them from here.”

“But you just said—"

“I said if they need help, in case there’s an emergency, I will be on call.”

“So will us.”

“Yes, but we’re working on two different things at the same time now, aren’t we?”

It’s not an accusation – her voice is soft, comprehensive even, a tone of mulled resignation, almost amused defeat, her eyes understanding –, but Tony feels a razor blade slice through him anyway, guilt seeping in like lava slipping through the cracks, melting from the inside.

“We can do both at the same time” Pepper offers, gently. “While I can help down here, I will. And you can help upstairs.”

Upstairs, where Barton is. Where Natasha, Nebula, Rocket, Bruce, and Thor are. Where the dangerous idea Tony planted might be taking seed, where his workshop is, where FRIDAY can pull up schematics and they can discuss it. Away from Pepper.

It’s happening, isn’t it?

(It is.)

(God, it’s happening again.)

Fuck.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Tony asks, miserably, though he knows the answer will not make him feel better – he knows what this is now.

(He has lived this moment many times before.)

(He can recognize it when it comes.)

“I told FRIDAY you needed to sleep. And you did.” Pepper sweetly says, her eyes understanding. “It’s okay, we have it handled.”

“I’m gonna help you.” Tony argues anyway, but his voice is weak.

“Tony.” Pepper says, in that tone – that sad, a little frustrated, full of heartache tone, that makes Tony’s chest seize with a terrible dread, a sense of urgency that something bad is coming, that the words that will follow won’t be anything but painful. “They need you upstairs.”

“You need me here, too.” Tony hastily reminds her. “You said you need engineers. I am an engineer, and I’m staying.”

“No.” Pepper softly interrupts, placing a hand on his wrist. “You need to go upstairs. Thor said he would be back soon. They’re gonna need you there.”

Tony almost asks her what the hell Thor has anything to do with this, when he suddenly remembers that Thor was supposed to go after the guy who built the Gauntlet this morning, and he’s going to have news when he comes back – whether they are good or bad.

“What about you?” He insists.

“I’ll be fine.” Pepper assures him. “I’ll do what I can to get those R&D guys with the equipment they need, and we’ll ask FRIDAY for any help if we need to. I’ll help Agent Ross and Agent Carter on comms. I won’t go out there unless they call, and if they do, I’ll let you know.”

Tony hesitates.

“If you need me—”

“I’ll call.” Pepper smiles, just a little fake, but that is more than enough for Tony’s chest to feel like it’s caving in on itself, like shrapnel forcing its way into his sternum all over again.

It never hurts any less.

No matter how many times it happens. How many times they find themselves in this moment, right here, over and over again; When they realize they’re in a tightrope that neither of them can cross, because they’re both too scared to move to each other’s side, or too stubborn, or too different to see each other’s path. So committed to finding safe ground on their own sides. They hold their hands out but the gap between them is too big, and no matter how hard they reach, even when they brush hands, even when they’re close enough to touch – the instinct to turn around and go back to their safe places is too strong, rooted too deep into both of them to allow them to take the leap.

They pull and tug. They bend. Sometimes it gets stronger…

But never strong enough.

It’s always painful, to realize the rope is giving. That it’ll unravel and drop them both, if they don’t retreat. The weight is too heavy. Crushing guilt, unspoken secrets, too much conflict. An entire universe on their shoulders. It always comes down to this. To a point where the pressure becomes too much, and whatever weaving of connection they tangled between them is not enough to hold them together, as Tony sinks in, as Pepper tries to pull him out and Tony just keeps being pulled down by forces he cannot shake.

It’ll pull until it snaps, if one of them doesn’t let go.

This is Pepper, testing the tug. Pepper is twisting the rope in her hands, uncertain, hesitating between pulling closer or letting it slip through her fingers.

(But Tony knows how this goes.)

Tony sighs, deep and broken, and lowers his head to stare at the ground, hating how exposed he feels in this moment. How easy it is for them to break, after all these years.

They’re not broken yet.

But they will be.

(Same old song and dance.)

“C’mon.” Rhodey says in a gentle mutter, giving him a supportive pat on the shoulder, his eyes terribly knowing. “Thor will be back soon.”

Tony takes in a shuddering breath, raises his head, swallows back down all the shrieks and screams and pleas he has roaring inside, letting them die suffocated between the spaces beneath his ribs, and nods.

“I’ll see you later.” Pepper affirms in a whisper, her eyes locked onto his, so he cannot twist her words into anything other than what they are. A kind promise. Truth. “Okay? Call me if you need me.”

“Yeah.” Tony replies in a choked mutter. “I will. You too, Pep, okay? I’ll see you later.”

I love you.

I love you, you know that, right?, he wants to say.

He doesn’t.

Pepper’s eyes linger on his for one more second, one long, drawn-out moment, a stretch of time they’re both stealing in a way, like young lovers who can’t win against the world that tries to keep them apart, but then Pepper breaks the connection, and turns away in a slow, careful movement, before heading towards the agents to discuss the addition of their communication devices to FRIDAY’s systems.

Tony stands there, for a moment.

He doesn’t know if he should go after her.

He doesn’t know he if he can.

Outside, somewhere amongst the grey clouds and the cold, the cutting wind and the vast silence, a thunder roars.

“Boss.” FRIDAY calls from a single speaker nearby, not too loud, but still sudden enough that it rips Tony off his numbness like a band-aid being ripped, stinging across his skin. “Mr. Odinson is back.”

“Yeah, got that.” Tony coughs, throat feeling strained. “Thanks, FRI.”

Tony sees from the corner of his eye Rhodey throws him a concerned glance, but only give out a soft sigh and head back towards the elevator, with a low let’s go, Tony muttered under his breath. Tony turns to follow him, not allowing himself to think too hard on the fact that he is doing this, he is leaving Pepper here with the agents to head upstairs and greet Thor, to see if his crazy idea has any chance of working, if he can put his life on the line for this shot that’s not even certain to pay off; And only when he turns he realizes Rogers is standing there, right behind him, listening to everything that has just happened.

Oh, goody.

The last thing Tony needed today. Shit, his neck burns with shame.

Rogers doesn’t say anything. He stares at Tony for a moment, eyes a little too wide and mouth a little too tight, shoulders tense and body locked in what almost looks like anticipation, like he’s holding back something and he’s only waiting for Tony to move to retaliate – but then suddenly, he goes lax, shoulders slumping and brows scrunching in a deep frown, jaw ticking with the force of his grinding teeth.

Tony has no idea what he’s thinking.

And though he can’t help but be mortified by Rogers listening in to the absolute disaster that has just happened here, he will not mention it with Rogers. He won’t.

He won’t do this to himself.

“Barton is upstairs.” Tony says instead, in a whisper, voice tight between the tense muscles in his throat. He’s not sure if Rogers knows this. He probably does, but Tony feels the need to say it anyway. Though he’s also not sure what Rogers could possibly do about it, if there’s even anything to be done; Tony just… Tony just doesn’t know how to deal with Barton right now, so maybe he should let Rogers handle it. Make himself scarce and let them talk between them.

Tony knows that whatever words he could offer for the guy would probably fall on deaf ears anyway.

“I know.” Rogers replies, equally low, his voice rough even as a hushing breath. “Natasha asked me to give them some alone time.”

“Is he staying here?”

“It would probably be the best thing.” Rogers says in a surprisingly gentle tone, not at all the forceful command that Tony has come to associate with him over time. “If you think he could stay.”

Tony looks at him.

Tony looks at him, and Rogers looks back, and Tony thinks he might actually have stopped breathing for a moment. His entire body goes stiff as stone, a sharp lightning of something going down his spine in a fraction of a second; A dreadful, overtaking feeling of self-awareness of how close they are standing, of how – how Rogers simply went along his stupid commentary and whispered back, how his eyes are so weirdly sharp, but not in a – in an aggressive way. Rogers looks at him like he can see past his skin, into his soul, like he has something he’s trying to say without opening his mouth, and it makes the hairs on Tony’s arms stand on edge because he doesn’t know what Rogers wants.

All the memories Tony has of Rogers seem to be tainted, somehow. Tony doesn’t know what is real and what is a product of the mess between them that spilled like a cup of coffee shattering on the floor, black liquid spreading through the cracks to stain everything that touches, to drown even the sweetest of things in bitterness.

Tony is not sure what Rogers wants anymore. His memories – his previous idea of who Rogers is was clearly not that accurate, so he’s not sure if the way he is reading this is any more correct than before.

Rogers is asking him if Barton can stay. Tony doesn’t even know why he didn’t ask to stay. Natasha didn’t ask to stay. They just did.

“I don’t think he should be alone.” Tony says, truthfully, because he doesn’t. “So, I guess so. You and Natasha seem to be staying.”

Tony is not sure how exactly those words sound when they leave his mouth, but from the look on Rogers’ face, it probably doesn’t sound like he thinks they did. Rogers’ neck goes back a little, his eyes going hard and his mouth twisting in what looks like a very painful grind of his teeth, so quick that Tony can’t even feel his defensive instincts kick in before Rogers’ expression goes a little slack again, covered in a muted sadness that Tony can see from the crease of his eyebrows, before he says:

“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable because of us.”

And for once, Tony does not feel any impulse to laugh or scorn or doubt his statement.

For some reason, Tony thinks Rogers might actually be saying the truth.

“If you want us to go, we’ll go.” Rogers says, in a way that manages to sound both earnest and wounded, until he quickly amends, a little more firmly, “We still want to fight, Tony. Whatever plan you have to get rid of Thanos, we will help you. We’re not going to ignore this.”

“I know.” Tony says, and he’s surprised to find out that he means it.

He does know. He does know this about Rogers: he will always fight.

Tony tries not to think too hard on how deeply he feels the veracity of this fact.

“But if you’d feel better if we left. If we stayed somewhere else…” Rogers finishes in a mutter. “We wouldn’t mind.”

The words almost don’t compute in his mind. For a second, Tony can’t feel anything but the purest form of appalment at this completely ridiculous idea.

“And where the hell would you go?” Tony asks, with a little too much scorn. He’s not even sure what makes him angrier. If it’s the softness in Rogers’ voice, or the burning, earnest look in his eyes, or the ridiculousness of his statement, or the presumption of his effect on Tony. Or the uselessness of it. Maybe the fact that he doesn’t have a choice, in the first place. Because he doesn’t. Even if Tony wasn’t fine with them staying at the Compound, which he is, he is fine with it, sort of – what other option do they have?

“That’s not the point.” Rogers answers, completely dodging the question.

“That’s not an answer.” Tony hisses, squinting at him.

It’s so – so frustratingly familiar. Rogers’ evasiveness. Tony knows what Rogers is trying to do, and maybe, some other time, in some other circumstance, he’d be glad about it. Maybe! At least Rogers isn’t unaware of how the things between them were left, isn’t ignorant to the fact that Tony is avoiding staying alone with him, or trying to think too hard on anything that picks too hard at a wound that’s not healed, but this kindness is not… It doesn’t help now.

“Tony.” Rogers says, far too intense, far too much for Tony to handle right now. “You have the right to not want me here.”

Me.

Not us.

Me.

“It’s fine.”, Tony curtly says.

“But if it wasn’t—”

“If it wasn’t,” Tony interrupts. “If I told you to go, would you?”

Rogers hesitates, but then, equally terse, says:

“Yes.”

Yes.

(Yes.)

“Then you can stop questioning me if I say it’s fine and you can stay.”

Rogers frowns, but doesn’t disagree.

“There’s no point in separating.” Tony admits, if a bit begrudgingly. “We can’t win this separated.”

And it’s true. Rogers knows it’s true.

What’s the point in separating now? That’s exactly why they’re in this situation to begin with – they weren’t together, and they weren’t ready.

Their petty fights don’t matter anymore now. It’s together or nothing.

They either work together, or they die.

It’s easier to focus on that.

“Guys.” Rhodey calls from behind Rogers, very cautiously, and Tony would feel a little uncomfortable with how obvious it is that Rhodey was waiting for a chance to interrupt them without setting off any of them into a rage fit, but he’s keyed up enough that he can only feel grateful for Rhodey’s peaceful intervention. “Thor is waiting for us. C’mon.”

Tony throws one last look at Rogers, feeling on edge that Rogers just stares back, like he’s trying to make Tony understand something that Tony just can’t read, because he can’t read Rogers’ fucking mind and he has no idea what kind of game he’s trying to play here.

If – If Rogers is trying to get close again, that won’t happen. It won’t, Tony can’t do that anymore. That – partnership, if they could even call it that? That old bickering teammates dynamic, the joking banter, the push and pull? That’s gone. They blasted through the limits so terribly Tony no longer trusts them enough to explode when in close proximity, much less to try and gain some resemblance of what it used to be before. Neither of them, Rogers, or himself. He said he can’t do that. He can’t do this I thought I was your friend thing all over again, and he needs to remind himself of that.

Tony has been forced to do worse than to house an unwilling business partner. Or unwanted. Whatever. Semantics. Tony really doesn’t care Rogers is sleeping under his roof, it’s not like they’re sharing a bed. Once was enough of that. Whatever Rogers does when he disappears when the sun goes down, that is not Tony’s concern anymore, and he won’t make it his concern.

He can stay, Tony told him. So can Barton, and Natasha, and the others. They can stay.

What else on Earth could Rogers possibly want from him?

Tony walks away, pretending he’s not hyper aware of the sound of Rogers’ steps echoing behind him, twin beats against the floor, as they both follow Rhodey out and proceed to have the most awkward ride of their lives; The three of them dead silent in the enclosed space, pretending they’re not aching with the instincts to shift and move to try to dispel some of the suffocating stuffiness of the elevator.

As subtle as they can – which is to say, probably not at all – Tony leans his head and seeks Rhodey’s eyes, only to find them already directed at him.

He looks concerned.

Are you okay?, he asks, needing nothing more than his gaze and a twitch of his eyebrows for Tony to hear the words, and the relief he feels at the old familiarity of Rhodey’s presence is as warm as a memory of summer, of laughs and metal, of brotherhood.

Tony aches for simpler times.

For simpler… everything.

He makes a lazy gesture with his neck, his head swaying to the side a little, eyes fluttering in a tired expression. Nevermind, it says. Not worth it.

Rhodey’s frown grows a little deeper, but when Tony offers him no other opening, he accepts it, and turns back to the front.

Tony is so grateful to have Rhodey in his side.

The elevator reaches the entrance floor with a smooth movement, a noise so sleek when the doors open to allow them passage that it’s almost inaudible. They don’t need to go far. They find Thor standing on the entrance lobby, halfway to Natasha, who is standing by the lounge’s entrance with a look in her face that seems a little too scared, a little too distressed, and Tony nearly asks her why out loud, before he realizes that in his hand, the one that’s not holding the axe, Thor, in his armor, just standing there in the middle of the lobby, has an enormous gauntlet in his grasp.

Not Thanos’.

But a gauntlet.

Suddenly it’s like he has been stabbed again.

“Thor, buddy.” Tony exhales in a winded breath. “Please tell me that giant gauntlet in your hand means good news.”

But Tony doesn’t need Thor to say a word to know it does not.

“Eitri is gone.” Thor says, his voice heavy with sorrow. “I couldn’t find him.”

They all stay stiffly still, too uncomfortable to know how to react to Thor’s revelation, too scared by the idea that the guy who supposedly was the only one who could help them build a replica of Thanos’ Gauntlet had suddenly disappeared – with far too great chances of being another victim to the decimation.

Was the guy Thor’s close friend? Tony doesn’t know.

Did he have anyone to mourn for him?

Thor had said he’d been the last of his kind.

(Extinction.)

“All I could do is bring this back.” Thor raises the enormous gauntlet a bit, calling attention to it. “The mold he had in his forge. It’s not made of the same material, I don’t think, but it was all I could bring with me. Figured it would be better than nothing.”

“Thanks anyway, big guy.” Tony awkwardly says, his lips twisting in discomfort. “I’m sorry. For your friend.”

“He wasn’t really my friend, he was…” Thor tries to explain, but his words get lost in the space between them all, dissolving into nothingness, with just a faraway look in his mismatched eyes as proof that something inside him is holding a grief he cannot properly explain with words.

“Did he have anyone?” Tony asks, shyly.

Thor hesitates. “No. I don’t think so.”

They all pause.

“Thor, if you need some time—” Natasha suggests, incredibly kind.

“No, no.” Thor insists, and they all politely ignore how gruff his voice sounds, far more than normal. “We should continue. We have the gauntlet, there’s no reason to waste any time.”

“Still.” Rogers says. “Thank you, Thor. We’ll do what we can to work with this.”

“Let’s bring it to the workshop. FRI, call everyone.” Tony says. “I want to see what we’re dealing with here.”

He hesitates when he goes to move, because stepping forward means stepping closer to Thor, and as soon as he does, Thor brings up his hand and offers the damned thing to him, for him to grasp it, to hold it, as if that what was Tony intended to do by getting closer. It wasn’t. He’d just meant to lead them to the workshop. But there it is, in Thor’s hand, extended to him, and Tony fumbles in his steps before his body can properly obey the command his brain gives it to stop, and for a second—

That feels like an entire lifetime

He stands there, before a god, with a replica of the Infinity Gauntlet in his hands, giving it to Tony.

(Tony doesn’t like to be handed things.)

“No, you can hold that.” Tony babbles a little hysterically. “You hold it. Bring it to the workshop, c’mon, let’s go.”

A strange look crosses Thor’s face, something that almost looks like pain, but Tony ignores it. He won’t give himself time to freak about it – It’s not even the real thing. It’s a replica. A non-functional replica. Even if Tony doesn’t want to hold it, there’s no reason to let the feeling of his skin crawling get out of control.

He knows by the sounds of footsteps that the others are following him, and he leads them through the side stairs, just because they are faster and give him an excuse to move instead of going back to the elevator, and he tries to gain some sense of familiarity and security on the way.

When they reach the workshop and the doors open, he damn near succeeds.

God, Tony missed being in a workshop.

This one has no cars, no art pieces, and no SI blueprints and schematics – this workshop had been designed with the Avengers in mind, to supply the Compound with whatever tech necessary Tony could provide. Of course, the lower floors had an R&D department, probably the labs Pepper would guide the agents downstairs to, when she… when she had time. While she helped Agents Carter and Ross. But this, this workshop – This is Tony’s and Tony’s only, a realm of creation Tony once wished Bruce could have shared with him, a place where he could bring to life things that would help the Avengers keep the world safe.

A dream never fulfilled.

They seem almost naïve, now.

Thor seems all too eager to lay the gauntlet mockup on top of a table, at full display of everyone, stepping back almost immediately to watch it from a bit further away. His eyes are trained on it like a cat would watch a dog, waiting for it to pounce. Some follow him more closely than the others, eyeing the Gauntlet with varying degrees of curiosity, hesitancy, and discomfort. They are still shuffling about when Bruce, Nebula and Rocket barge in, in quick strides – until they see the thing on the table and almost trip over one another.

“Is that—?” Nebula asks, choked.

“A replica.” Tony assures her.

“Did the big guy…?” Rocket asks Thor, concerned, and Thor only shakes his head. It’s pitiful, to see how the raccoon turns so sad all of a sudden.

Nebula brushes a hand on Rocket’s shoulder, a touch so soft it only barely ruffles the fur, and ushers him forward so they both step closer, entering their circle around the gauntlet, all of them staring at it warily.

“Barton?” Tony asks Natasha, just to be sure.

Natasha shrugs, jerkily.

Tony decides not to press it.

“FRIDAY, dear, scan this for us.” “I want all possible details you can find on this thing.”

“Right away.” FRIDAY complies, but even as she’s still running the scans, Tony’s brain starts to fire in a thousand directions at once, theories and possibilities firing up like fireworks, his own eyes making a quick assessment of the replica up close.

“It’s obviously not the same material.” He thinks out loud, scratching his chin just so he can have something to do with his hand. “So we’ll need to find something similar to replace it.”

Bruce puts on glasses, glasses Tony has no idea where he got from, and steps closer, squinting at the gauntlet. “Did you get close enough to look?”

“Close enough to touch.” Tony growls, frustrated. “But still couldn’t get it off him.”

“This metal, wasn’t there any of it in his place, along with the mold for this?” Rogers asks Thor off to the side, pointing to the gauntlet prototype.

“Each metal in Nidavellir is unique.” Thor explains. “Different properties, different spells carved into it. No two weapons forged are the same.”

“That’s not good news, buddy.” Natasha mumbles, but mostly to herself.

“I myself don’t know exactly what Stormbreaker is made of.” Thor admits. “It’s different from my hammer. Different magic. I had to hold the star open myself, so the metal would melt, but it’s possible other magical components had been added to it before we arrived.”

“Hold on, did you just say the star?”

“Nidavellir is a forge powered by the heart of a dying star.” Rocket informs them, crossing his arms, as if the mere knowledge of this fact fills him with inexplicable pride.

“You’re saying that this—” Bruce points to Thor’s axe, and then to the gauntlet, “—and this, were forged with the power of a star?”

“That’s right.”

“Great.” Bruce says, making very clear it’s not great at all.

“It had to be something strong enough to hold six Infinity Stones.” Nebula reminds them, voice gruff. “Not only when they were just there, but also when he used them. The Gauntlet has to be just as powerful.”

“The original material is an ancient metal, called Uru.” Thor explains, with the familiarity of someone who has heard or told this tale a thousand times before. “The Dwarves where the only ones skilled enough to use it. It had many forms, but they are all equal in one way: their ability to withstand grand power and magic, without coming apart.”

“Yeah, we gathered that.” Bruce grumbles. “But how do we recreate something like that? Here?

“We’ll find something.” Tony affirms. “And if we don’t, we’ll create something.”

“We’ll also need to find a way to steal the Stones from him.” Natasha reminds them. “Which means creating something strong enough to hold him while we get them.”

“And make sure he can’t use them against us while we’re trying to get close.” Rogers amends.

“Can’t use nothing if he’s dead.” Rhodey complains to himself, and Rocket gives him an approving look, shrugging.

“Man’s got a point.”

He does, but not the most efficient strategy.

“We’ll start from the basics.” Tony leads. “Infinity Stones. What do we know?”

“There are six Infinity Stones, ever since the creation of the Universe.” Thor drawls, the same way Tony imagines prophets or storytellers of myths to speak, voice dragged by memories of things too vast and too ancient for others to comprehend.

“We don’t know what they are, or what they are made of.” Bruce shrugs forcefully, a little edge of panic bleeding into his voice. “What we do know, from princess Shuri’s scans, is that they are polymorphic. Something in them doesn’t follow normal laws of matter, like what we found in the scepter, so they possibly can change form, too.”

“All of them?” Thor asks, with a furrowed brow.

“Yes? I’m assuming?” Bruce replies confusedly. “Why?”

“I once encountered one of the other Stones.” Thor says. “The Reality Stone, also known as the Aether. Jane found it, in a gap between worlds, where it was hidden. It was strange, it was… It was not solid.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was fluid. Couldn’t be held, couldn’t be destroyed. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” Thor explains, with a faraway tone. “The only way to contain it was to use a proper structure that could hold it. Free, it would only bring chaos.”

“Wait, isn’t that the thing you said you were trying to get back a few years ago? The one your girlfriend got attacked by?” Tony recalls in a surprised jolt, a memory stirring in his mind, from a long time ago, from a certain point in time he can’t quite pinpoint right.

“The attack in London.” Tony knows he’s not crazy when Rogers confirms it with his question, also associating this information with a tale of a fight Thor shared with them years ago, before Ultron, before it all fell apart.

“I didn’t know it was an Infinity Stone then.” Thor justifies. “Magic, even magic as powerful as the Aether had seemed, is not unheard of in Asgard. My father… My father had many things hidden across the universe, in an attempt to protect our people from getting close to it, or to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Chances are some of them won’t be discovered in thousands of years, if they ever are. I had no way of knowing the Aether was something more.”

And when he puts it like that, he has a point. Godly father, all too powerful, probably a little too overprotective of his things? Tony can imagine Odin being the kind of guy who you hide his toys in the darkest places in the universe, in the hope no one would find them.

But Christ, that had been in 2013. How long have they been chasing this without realizing?

“I knew the Aether was dangerous.” Thor admits, with a twinge of sorrow. “I had no idea how much.”

“That goes for any of them, Thor.” Bruce offers, his face soft with sympathy.

“They have to be protected.” Thor continues, trying to steel himself a little more by returning to a more analytical approach. “They were hidden, and they have to be contained, even when not in use. They are too powerful to even be free into the world. Even the Aether, that was not… a Stone, exactly, had a box of sorts, a protection that would keep it stored and safe.”

Nebula’s back straightens a little, as if struck with sudden realization. “When my sister was sent to track the Power Stone, she was told to look for something called the Orb. A protective barrier, between the Infinity Stone, and those who owned it.”

“The Space Stone was hidden inside the Tesseract.” Thor informs, to the clear surprise of all. “And the Mind Stone—”

“Inside the scepter.” Tony breathes, the electric feeling of understanding washing through him in a thrilling pulse, adrenaline pumping in his veins. “FRIDAY, pull up my notes on Loki’s scepter and the Stone. Also any information you have on the 2012 attack, Ultron, and Vision.”

Tony can see a tiny flinch wreck through Natasha and Rogers at the mention of Vision – or Ultron, who knows –, but it’s the shudder and the lowering of Thor’s gaze that strikes him as odd, and Tony frowns, but can’t be sure if he should ask or not what that meant.

Rogers moves closer, restlessness clear in his posture. “What about the others?”

“Strange also had one.” Bruce informs them. “The thing he wore. His necklace, or whatever that was. It was a container for the Stone, the Time Stone.”

Wong.” Tony exclaims. “Do we have any info on Wong? Do we know if he made it?”

“He stayed behind to protect the Sanctum.” Bruce says. “Haven’t heard from him since.”

“FRI, find him. If he’s still here, we might need him to learn more about the Stones.”

FRIDAY chips in with an agreement, but the conversation is already barreling through her voice, hasty and full of anticipation, all of them too anxious to halt the subject now.

Rocket’s eyes scan the room, going over them one by one, before asking, in a cautious tone:

“What about the last one? Does anyone know anything about it?”

There’s a pause. No one replies for a long, suffocating second.

Tony’s eyes fall to Nebula on instinct.

She looks small.

“The Soul Stone.” She says, and all eyes snap to her, like ravenous beasts at the sight of scraps, too eager to hear information about this Stone none of them have ever encountered – until the look in her face comes into focus, and they all sober up instantly, like a bucket of ice water has been doused on them. “Only my sister knew where it was. It had been hidden since the beginning of time. All I know is that Thanos forced her to tell him, and he took her with him to find the Stone. When he came back… She wasn’t with him.”

The silence that falls upon them is oppressing.

Rocket is the one to offer her comfort this time. He doesn’t put a hand on her shoulder, but he steps closer, close enough that he can brush against her a little, silent companionship, and Nebula shifts her weight to her other leg so she can stay close, unknowingly or not.

Her sister.

Thanos’ daughter.

(Her family.)

Tony feels too awkward to step closer and offer her comfort, but he’s sort of glad to see her and Rocket press close to one another, to seek support. Tony had assumed Gamora had been Nebula’s only family, and that she had never been close to the other so-called Guardians of the Galaxy as she’d been to her sister, but seeing this – Tony might’ve been wrong. Or maybe not, but grief has put whatever trouble they had between them in the past.

At least.

He hoped so.

They can’t be alone now. None of them can.

They have to find comfort however they can. In whoever they can.

They need to be together to survive this.

A beat passes, two, three – the air in the room settles, weighted by dread but frizzling with determination, with the impulse to right this wrong, to wipe away the sorrow that has drowned them.

(Together.)

“We’ll get them back.” Tony tells her, tells them, tells himself.

And he’s going to make it true.

He’s going to make it happen.

They all stare at him, they all see his determination, his relentless drive, and Tony can tell they want to believe him, they are starting to believe him, and good. Because they will. They will make this work. He can feel it in his bones, it echoes in his soul.

Rogers steps closer, almost side to side with Tony, and Tony lets him.

Tony lets him, at least this time.

This one last time.

(Together.)

“We need all the information we can get on those things. Make sure we’re not missing anything. Especially something that might get us killed.” Rogers says, but there is no fear in his voice. Only conviction. Only certainty.

They are going to make this happen.

“Let’s walk through everything we know.”

Notes:

We're gonna get a little nerdy in the next one, folks. I hope you like that, because I'll probably have way too much fun with it! Let's hope I don't completely lose control over my word count again.

Pepper, we're reaching the end of your arc. Not quite there yet, but soon. And together with some plot, we'll transition from her piece to the next one in line, a special arc that's going to include more than one character at once. You'll see what I mean when we get there.

For now, I hope you enjoyed it! Thank you for reading, and remember, my twitter and tumblr are always open to you guys, and if you like my writing, consider checking out the pinned post in my twitter, you might be interested in that!

See you next time, friends :)

Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Notes:

We're going down a memory lane for this one. Believe me, we're gonna need it.

The clues for the final conflict in the Infinity Saga had been floating around for a very, very long time. Often we forget how long, I think. The funny thing about scattering pieces across the road for someone else to find is that you can't forget those pieces will fit a whole when they're all found. A puzzle piece rarely serves a purpose if it doesn't add to the full picture - so the full picture should always be in your mind. Even if the puzzle takes a decade to come together. You still need it to fit, when the time comes.

Because someone might try to put them side by side and see what picture they form. If they make sense, if compared. And that's exactly what we're gonna do.

First things first: gather all the information. Or, most of the information. We can only work with what we have at hand, so we need to know what's in stock; And we'll build our picture from there. We'll see what's useful and what's a problem, what's a coincidence and what's a pattern, and what sort of incredibly valuable information we might have missed just because it was never necessary before. There's gonna be a lot. I'm not gonna give you the shortened, already filtered version, no - I'm taking you down this road through the same path or heroes will have to go through, like you and I are just two other people in that room, and no one is coming to help us. We'll figure this out the old fashioned way. Tony is a scientist - I couldn't possibly not give him the chance to do what he does best, now, could I?

You're more than welcome to throw in a theory or two in the comments section, if you want. Considering the fact that Carol won't be here to help, and no information from Ant-Man and Wasp can be used, I'd like to know if you have any idea how could this possibly be solved. You guys don't have to be shy! I'm sure you know by now I have a lot of fun debating theories and meta with you guys - you are free to share your ideas with me if you'd like! I'd love to hear what you think.

There's a lot of information in this one, folks. Grab a pen an paper if you wanna. Maybe when this is all over, I'll show you my own annotations for this fic - and they are long, not gonna lie aksjdhajksfhkjasf Maybe it would be interesting to see what you guys think about it!

We're gonna have even more information on the next one too, so get ready. But we can start with our theories right away, if we'd like!

We have more than enough content, I will tell you that. You can see it for yourself.

Enjoy the chapter, everybody <3

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The board goes like so:

There’s a huge projection in the far back wall, a blue hologram that FRIDAY projects large enough that it bathes the entire room in its hue, electric and encompassing, brightness sharp and hypnotic before their eyes. It reflects against the light countertops and workstations, the clean, minimalistic design of the almost bare floors and walls, but barely gleaming against the dull metal of the mockup gauntlet that rests on the table; They watch it, transfixed, almost unblinking, as they gather before it like subjects before their deity – in fear and determination, in challenge of its threats, when an image of a familiar glowing cube presents itself right in the middle of the panel, almost like a mockery, the main star presenting itself for the show.

The image mimics the flickering of the light at its core, the constant swirling of energy beneath the smooth surface of the blue cube, and with it, almost like an illusion, the projection board gives the barest of flickers, as if it could feel its power from the image alone.

It sends shivers down the spine.

“We’ll start with that one.” Tony exhales, steeling himself for the mental and emotional strain that he is sure is about to come.

“Schmidt found the Tesseract in Norway in 1942.” Rogers says, his arms crossed, his brow furrowed in concentration. “He and Zola used the power in it to make weapons to HYDRA.”

FRIDAY adjusts the projection almost immediately – the Tesseract becomes a miniature, much easier to manipulate, and it gets pushed to the left when a horizontal line cuts through the board like a spear, the number 1942 gaining a mark in faint, glowing digits. Beneath it, the additional information gets linked: Norway, Johann Schmidt, Arnim Zola.

Norway provides no clarification, but the names that follow do. FRIDAY immediately puts up two profiles, both of them with miniatures Tony instantly recognizes as SHIELD’s threat reports, both with a glaring red skull with tentacles beside their pictures, indicating their association with HYDRA. The name Johann Schmidt brings him no surprise – everyone knows who Captain America’s biggest enemy is, was, they have all read the comics and visited the museums – but the second one Arnim Zola, itches in Tony’s brain for some reason he can’t place, the nagging feeling of having something he needs to grasp that is just out of his reach.

But that’s for later. The reports too. They’ll have to read the weapons report to see what they found, what kind of crazy stuff HYDRA was messing with in their basement in the forties. And how far they got with what they had.

“What was it doing in Norway in the first place?” Bruce asks, his brows furrowing curiously, hands wringing in discomfort.

“I don’t know.” Rogers admits.

“It is said that the Tesseract was once of my father’s treasures.” Thor interjects softly, swaying a little in his place, as if he’s not sure what position he should take. “If it was no longer in the vault, it’s because he took it out of there on purpose. He probably hid it on Earth himself.”

“Yes, but why Norway?”

“He seemed to be fond of the place.” Thor says, extremely sorrowful for some reason. “It’s the only explanation I can think of.”

“Okay, we’ll put a pin on that.” Tony presses, not allowing the conversation to stray too far. “No other register of it before then?”

“Not that we know of.” Rogers confirms.

“So our timeline starts in ’42.” Tony repeats, for his own comforting’s sake. “During the war, it got lost in the water, my dad found it, and brought it back to the SSR.”

“Which then turns into SHIELD.” Natasha continues.

“And they use it in Project PEGASUS.” Barton confirms.

Barton – Barton?

They turn around, surprised, and yes, it was – Barton, leaning against the door of the workshop, muscles so tense and taut Tony can almost see the outline through his shirt, from where he crosses his arms in a self-defensive posture that’s far too strained to be comforting.

He looks older. Older than Tony remembered him. Too old, too tired for his age.

Tony hadn’t expected to see him. He though – Well, he didn’t think anything. Maybe that Barton had gone back. Or hidden in one of the rooms. Maybe Natasha’s room. To grieve in silence. Tony would have understood that. Maybe that would be the more reasonable solution, to grieve, and not to… do whatever they are doing here. Not to push, not to volunteer to throw himself back into the fire because he’d prefer to burn than to move on. Tony had assumed, maybe, somewhere in the back of his mind, that Barton had really tapped out. That the farm and the civilian life had finally gotten to him, and he’d refuse to step inside the danger zone again. That he finally had enough. Losing family can do that to a man.

But maybe not.

Maybe the guy… Maybe he wants to be a soldier.

(Maybe he’s not scared of dying for this.)

(Maybe he already has.)

Well.

Tony won’t say no.

Not this time.

“Sorry.” Barton says, not sounding exactly sorry. “I decided to let myself in.”

They regard him in careful silence, waiting patiently as Barton pushes off the wall and approaches in slow, almost sluggish steps, to join them in the line before the board. Rogers turns to him, with a curt nod, and when Barton nods back, even if his mouth is pressed in a tight, bitter line, Rogers asks:

“What do you know of this PEGASUS thing?”

“Not much.” Barton admits, with a half-hearted shrug. “Only that Fury was trying to do something that he clearly wasn’t ready to face yet. Selvig was in it too, and a bunch of other scientists. But even then, they figured it worked for some sort of portal-opening device. When Loki attacked, they’d been trying to open it from our side, until Loki opened from his’.”

“Do you know when this project was initiated?”

“No clue.” Barton raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. “Is that important?”

“Zola was the one who helped HYDRA infiltrate SHIELD. He was the first recruit of Operation Paperclip.” Rogers says pointedly and – oh.

Operation Paperclip. Of course.

Tony remembers the guy now.

  1. The Triskelion. The data dump. HYDRA inside SHIELD.

Arnim fucking Zola. The itch at the back of Tony’s brain, suddenly, becomes a headache.

“If he had access to the Tesseract, he certainly would have been making tests on it.” Rogers states.

“SHIELD records state Dr. Zola died in 1972.” FRIDAY swiftly informs, precise and direct, enlarging the picture of the scientist to draw attention to it, and she brings up a cutout from what looks like the scan of a medical report, stating Zola died in November of 1972, of lung cancer.

Beside it, she makes a marker for Project PEGASUS, with some information she immediately starts to collect from the data available from SHIELD’s leak, and after no more than two seconds, the file slides away from Zola’s picture, connecting it to a mark in the timeline, with no link to the Doctor whatsoever; below the number 1980. “And according to the SHIELD decrypted files released by Agent Romanov, Project PEGASUS was initiated in the eighties.”

That seems to bring some relief to Rogers, who sighs softly and drops his shoulders, but the effect this information has on Tony is completely opposite.

Tony knows something about that, too.

“My father.” Tony suddenly says, a flash of recognition snapping in him. “He worked on PEGASUS when it was launched. It was around the time the Expo was canceled. He had notes on the Tesseract—”

Tony stops.

He stops, and he remembers.

He remembers despair and resignation, chest pains and short breaths, sleepless nights and recklessness. The burning of alcohol and loss. Of rotations, fire capacity, chemistry, and coconut and metal.

(The Arc Reactor.)

(The Arc Reactor is Tesseract-based tech.)

“Son of a bitch.” Tony mutters, feeling like the ground beneath him is trembling in an earthquake only he can feel, his knees trembling with the pulse of something that threatens to bring him down, muscles weak and bones frail, a rush of cold adrenaline pumping through his veins like his blood is being frozen as it runs through his body.

“What’s wrong?” Rhodey asks, alarmed.

Tony unconsciously brings his hand to his chest, fingers grazing the surface of the glass of his nanite compartment, as if an absent-minded caress. He can almost feel the soft vibrations of the nanites moving inside it.

(In his chest.)

(It has been in his chest all along.)

“The Reactor.” Tony explains, in a winded exhale. “The one in the factory, and the one I miniaturized. It was all based on the notes he took on the Tesseract.”

They stare at him, aghast, all eyes dropping to the glowing shine of the reactor in his chest, resting easy over his heart, as if to protect it. Exactly for that reason. To protect it.

Tony had forgotten about this detail.

He feels like he might throw up.

“I modified it, after a while.” He says, both to their comfort and his own, to keep himself following a logic, following memories of numbers and equations, not – not even for one second allowing himself to think he has tech based on an Infinity Stone attached to his body, to his entire self, at this very moment. “The original plans involved a palladium core, but it wasn’t effective, and it was…”

“Poisonous.” Natasha completes, with not much gentleness in her voice.

Tony’s teeth click together when his mouth snaps shut, feeling his neck burn with the uncomfortable sensation of both Natasha and Rhodey staring at him with too knowing eyes, and all he can say is a soft yes in acknowledgment of Natasha’s reply.

“But you made it work.” Rogers insists, with an inquiring eyebrow raised. “You fixed it.”

“It was too big.” Tony recalls, as if it was yesterday, as if Yinsen is no more than a few steps behind him and the cave is humid and cold around him, as if it’s the same night when Tony stayed awake for hours thinking and thinking and thinking, to figure out the problem, to figure out how to solve it. “Making it smaller means more rotations, which means more power. The core was different too. Palladium works, because of the relays, but with that much energy from the plasma channels it decayed fast—”

“Tony.” Rhodey softly interrupts, throwing him a look, and Tony sighs before gathering himself and continuing, less erratically.

“Badassium helped stabilize it. It’s stronger, conducts more energy. Also… doesn’t… it’s not poisonous.” Tony points out, very plainly. “And it’s more efficient and it’s not breaking apart every two weeks, so it works better. The Reactor from Mark I produced 3 gigajoules per second. Today, any of my Reactors produces at least 6.”

“And you can replicate it.” Rogers says, not as a question, but an affirmation. Tony nods. “You think the Tesseract might work in a similar way?”

“Somewhat.” Tony admits. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s inside an infinity Stone, or even what it’s made of, but if anything, it’s producing energy the same way a Reactor does. Or the other way around. It certainly doesn’t reach the same levels of energy, but it got stronger since I made my own version. If there’s a way to improve on that—

“We might have something strong enough to fight back.”

And if it works the same, it could break the same.

(In his chest.)

(This entire time.)

Barton takes another glance at the Reactor, wary. “You don’t open portals with that thing, do you?”

“Not yet.” Tony hisses, frustrated. “But if there’s a way to do it, I’m going to find out how.”

“Okay.” Bruce breathes deep, trying to maintain his composure. “Okay, we’ll get back to that. As soon as possible. But let’s stay focused. 2012, Project PEGASUS. We’re gonna need every document we can find on that. And… And you father’s notes too.”

“I have them.” Tony assures him. “I got it.”

“So what then?”

“Loki comes in with the scepter, and that’s our first contact with the Mind Stone.” Barton provides, if a little coldly.

On cue, a replica of the Mind Stone, it’s small size and vibrant yellow color glimmering in the projection, appears, and next to it, images of Loki’s scepter and an entire profile on Loki himself appear beneath the marker for 2012.

Thor steps closer to the panel, eyes lost in thought; feet light, but shoulders slumped, a stiffness to his frame that is awkward in his large body. He stares at Loki’s picture, and doesn’t say a word.

Loki.

Where is Loki?

Thor hasn’t… he hasn’t said a word.

Has Loki—

“He takes the Tesseract, and the scepter, and he builds a portal. He brings the Chitauri with it.” Barton recalls.

“Erik Selvig probably has the notes on the portal.” Natasha reminds them.

“Not sure.” Barton admits begrudgingly. “We didn’t have all the information about the plan, all we knew was what each of us needed to know. Nothing more.”

“Selvig seemed to have some level of consciousness when he built the portal, if he hadn’t he wouldn’t have added a failsafe. And he did. Besides, after Loki was taken, the portal fell into SHIELD custody. I’m sure they had files on it.”

“They did.” FRIDAY adds, and a profile for Erik Selvig is also added to the board in 2012, along with notes for the Chitauri army.

“We also have some notes on it.” Bruce remembers, and then turns to Tony with focused eyes. “Remember when Loki ordered them to get Iridium?”

“Stabilizer.” Tony says in agreement.

“Which means the cube still has some limitations, even if it’s alien. It could open the portal, but it couldn’t hold it open without collapsing. Gravity would force it to close itself. If we can cross-reference Selvig’s notes with your notes on the Reactor and your father’s notes on the Tesseract, we might get a full picture of how it really works.”

Iridium goes in the board too.

2012 suddenly begins to look very, very crowded in that panel.

“Put a pin on that too.” Tony says, agitated. “Next. We blow them up, get the cube, and Thor takes it back to Asgard.”

“And it stayed there, until Ragnarok arrived.” Thor informs, sounding forlorn, his eyes still locked onto Loki’s picture in the board.

Loki – shit, Loki probably didn’t survive, did he? Thor staring at his picture like he’s trying to drink in the sight of him, like he has to absorb every detail before the picture is taken away, as if that would take his brother away forever; That’s not… No one does that.

Tony gets the feeling something really, really bad happened. Ragnarok.

Isn’t Ragnarok the end of the world?

(It is.)

(It is.)

“It hadn’t been used since.” Thor continues, and after a beat, a deep, shuddering breath escapes his parted lips, his eyes dropping to the floor in what almost looks like shame, and he turns his back; to Loki’s picture, to the Tesseract, to the entire thing. He turns to them like a prisoner awaiting sentence, expecting judgment, and sorrowfully, he says, “Loki took it, when we escaped – and Thanos took it from him, when he attacked our ship, and… And killed him. Killed my people.”

Killed his people.

Thanos had gotten to Asgard before them. Thanos had… shit.

Oh – shit. Loki had the Tesseract. And Thanos found them – fuck.

“Thor—” Bruce starts, but Thor doesn’t give him the chance to speak before interrupting, forcing his voice clearer and louder, pretending they can’t see the way his eyes glimmer with unshed tears.

“It was also what he used to escape.” Thor says, after trying to hide a sniffle. “When the fight was over. He opened a portal and just disappeared.”

“What about your people?” Tony asks, because he has to. He has to ask.

“Half of them escaped.” Thor says, mutedly. “I don’t know where. Valkyrie hasn’t made contact since. I can only hope they are safe.”

Valkyrie. An actual Valkyrie? Jesus Christ.

“That’s all I know.” Thor concludes, shaking his shoulders as if to try to disperse the invisible weight on them, as if hands are gripping him and he can’t stand their touch on his skin. “And now we’re here.”

Now they are here.

“That’s our timeline.” Natasha says sourly, staring at the panel, lips pursing in displeasure and eyes sharp.

“For the Tesseract.” Clint bitterly points out. “We still have five others to go.”

“We barely have any info on most of them.” Rhodey complains. “Nebula said no one knew about the Soul Stone, and Thanos just got it. We have no idea if someone had it first, or what it does.”

“And if we don’t find Wong, I don’t know if we’ll have anything on the Time Stone either.” Bruce recalls.

“Not even if we go to his… sanctuary?” Rogers asks, awkwardly.

“Sanctum.” Tony corrects. “Maybe. He looked like the kind of guy who would have a fancy library with spell books or… whatever. I don’t know, could be worth a check.”

Tony’s suggestion is off-handed at most, but Rogers nods like it was a request to be fulfilled, and he assures, “We’ll do it.”

“What about the Power Stone?” Nebula asks suddenly, turning towards Rocket.

“We actually don’t know much either.” Rocket admits, his face incredibly frustrated for a raccoon. “Quill found it in Morag – it’s nowhere special, just one of many rocks floating in space, no rules, no supervision. Askin’ to be stolen, if you ask me. There was a Kree guy lookin’ for it, Gamora too.”

None of them have any idea what a Kree guy is, but Tony supposes it’s another kind of alien. Gamora, however, is a name he’s been hearing a lot.

“What did they want with it?”

“Same thing Thanos did. It’s the Power Stone.” Rocket drawls sarcastically. “It packed one hell of a punch. It reacted to anything organic. The bigger the target, the bigger the surge.”

“So it worked almost the same. It released energy and that energy looked for a host. Instead of modifying space and time, it attached to people. Living things.” Bruce considers.

“Makes sense.” Tony affirms. Guesses. He’s not sure yet. Not knowing how it works makes the logic of it hazy all around. “Wong did say each Stone attaches to one aspect that controls life. They might all work the same, but act on different objects.”

“How can they be composed of the same chemical properties, have the same energy systems, but act on different things?” Bruce questions, frowning.  “How can they know what to act on?”

“Guess we’ll have to figure it out.” Tony exhales, and because he doesn’t want to think about that just now, he simply blurts out, “Thor. What do you have on the Reality Stone?”

Tony almost feels a little bad with the overwhelming attention that suddenly turns to Thor, all eyes trained on him in the span of a second, watching every move.

“First I heard of it was in 2013, when Jane slipped through one of the portals of the Convergence.” Thor says nonchalantly, as if he’s not saying a bunch of things that make absolutely no sense.

“Wait, Imma need you to stop right there and explain that.” Tony raises a finger, blinking owlishly. “The what now?”

“The Convergence is an event where all the Nine Realms align across the universe. An alignment that takes millennia between every occurrence. In 2013, they aligned. And though not many beings can feel it, much less see it, it is there.” Thor explains, making gestures to try to aid his words, but without any visual to back up the words, it just looks like… a very weird imitation of hand-wavy magic. Or maybe every bit of weird hand-wavy magic. “Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, is constantly moving. Sometimes, the branches that hold the Realms align, and it opens passages between them. One of those passages led Jane to the Stone.”

“A tree?” Rhodey asks, with arched brows.

“A literal tree?” Rocket frowns.

“More like a metaphor.” Thor mumbles.

“Okay, this is too much. Time out.” Tony begs, making a stop motion with his hands. “We’re not getting anywhere with this.”

“The Reality Stone is able to create illusions.” Thor offers, a little louder, so they all pay attention to what he’s saying. “Visual illusions, yes, but also in a way that distorts reality itself. A being can give itself a larger, stronger form, one can walk a path where there is none, and it – it always looks for a host.”

Thor stops, as if surprised by his own words.

“Like the Power Stone.” Rocket concludes. “And probably like all the others.”

“Could they be looking for something?” Natasha asks, dubiously. “The Stones. Is it possible that they are searching for something specific across the universe? A host?”

“They have consciousness.”

They all stop.

They stare. Bruce fidgets under their gaze.

“Remember the Mind Stone?” Bruce prompts, gesturing to Tony. “What we found inside it? That was… crazy. That was not just a composition of a chemical component, it was an entire network of information, like neurons. They were passing that information to one another. The reason why Vision could even exist in the first place was because those things inside the Stone were synapses. It was thinking. So there is some level of… well – maybe not consciousness, but sentience.

“It’s the Mind Stone.” Tony argues. “If any of them would have something like that inside, it would be that one.”

“But didn’t we just consider that they all might have the same components? Doesn’t that mean the others might have some sentience too?” Bruce counters, hunching his shoulders.

“It would explain mind control.” Barton adds.

“Also Jane’s behavior.” Thor says, distractedly. “When she stumbled upon the Reality Stone, it lodged itself inside her; and when Malekith found us, she recognized him. She had no reason to, but she did. I think the Stone might have been responsible. It is possible the Stones remember their hosts.”

“The Stone didn’t kill her?” Rocket asks, confused, and with a strange twinge of surprise in his voice. “Just touching the Power Stone killed a bunch of people.”

“It was killing her. Slowly.” Thor admits, his voice straining painfully. “Malekith removed it from her before it could happen, but I don’t know what we could have done if he hadn’t.”

“He removed it?” Rogers repeats, alarmed. “How?”

“I don’t know.” Thor says. “He simply… reached out and the Stone flowed out of her, towards him. Like I said, it was fluid. Maybe because the Dark Elves are manipulators of dark energy, and the Reality Stone acts on dark energy and dark matter, he could do it. We tried, with many of Asgard’s finest spells, and none of it helped.”

Bruce jumps in a startled gasp. “The Reality Stone does what?”

“Manipulate dark energy?”

Seriously?”

Thor looks taken aback, overwhelmed by Bruce’s outburst. “Dark matter and dark energy are powerful forces. To control them means to control one of the universe’s foundations itself. Even in Asgard, our most powerful sorcerers don’t have a full grasp on their properties and strengths. It makes sense than an Infinity Stone would rule over it.”

“You use dark energy in Asgard?” Bruce asks, incredulous, looking around the room to see if anyone is as astonished by this information as he is. They are not. But to be fair, they probably don’t know how beyond shocking this revelation is. Tony himself wouldn’t have known, hadn’t he read on the subject years ago, when preparing to meet Bruce for the first time in 2012. It’s wasn’t even Bruce’s field of expertise. It was just… the pink, polka-dotted elephant in every physicists’ room. “Do you know what it is?

“One of the many forces of the universe. It is one of the essential components for the Bifrost.” Thor replies managing to sound both incredibly vague and incredibly defensive at the same time.

“Yes, and physicists have been trying to discover what it is for decades. And you’re out there using it.” Bruce exasperatedly says. “Thor, you can’t just say that and expect me to not freak out!”

Thor, who admittedly has no fault, looks at the others, baffled and in clear need for rescue. They all stare back, even more confused.

“Okay, we’ll get back to that.” Tony quickly intervenes, for both Bruce’s and Thor’s sake, stepping forward so he can bodily block the vision between the two of them, hoping a barrier will make them retreat instinctively. “So we actually have some information on the Reality Stone, and that’s good. How did you get it back, after the… whoever took it from your girlfriend?”

“I tried to destroy it with Mjolnir. It didn’t work.” Thor desolately admits. “The Stone just pieced itself back together and Malekith took it.”

“But you did get it back, because you said the Stone was in nowhere.” Rocket says, and then pauses. “Wait. Did you leave the Stone with the Collector? The guy is a total whack-job!”

“Nowhere?” Rhodey asks, frowning. “What the hell does that mean, did you lose it?”

“No, Knowhere. With a K. It’s a place.” Rocket clarifies. “And the Collector is a crazy guy who likes to keep all sorts of things in cages for fun, from shiny things to people.”

Oh, yikes. What the – Where is this conversation going?

Tony has a splitting headache.

He’s not even sure he knows what he’s doing here anymore.

“Jane helped us create a trap, of sorts, that incapacitated Malekith. She and Erik Selvig helped me in the fight, and when Malekith was dead, the Stone just…” He makes a wavy gesture with his hand. “Escaped from his body. That’s when we gathered a proper place to keep it, a case specifically made to contain powerful objects such as the Aether. And when we secured it, I returned to Asgard, and my friends took the Aether to the Collector, hoping it would be safe.”

“Well, that didn’t work out.” Rocket mutters, looking to the side with exaggeratedly wide eyes, like he’s questioning Thor’s sanity on this statement alone. Nebula stares at him, and pays him no mind.

“There’s no chance this guy didn’t use the Stone on his own?” Natasha inquires Thor, with just a hint of steel in her voice. “Are you sure no one else touched it since you left it there?”

“I don’t think he would have.” Thor says as a defense, fully honest. “The Collector is an odd man, maybe a bit of a lunatic, but he is no fool. Even for someone like him, some powers are not to be careless with.”

“Well, something happened.” Rocket complains. “Because when we separated, Quill and the others headed to Knowhere to get it, and in the end, Thanos got the Stone! So whatever he did, it was not enough.”

“When did Thanos get the Reality Stone?” Tony asks, an idea sparking in his head.

“I don’t know! Hard to know when anything is happening in space. Not like I have a watch!” Rocket snaps.

“Okay – what Stones did he have?” Tony clarifies, and when Rocket looks at him like he lost his marbles, he explains, “We need to stablish a timeline for Thanos’ attack. We are too many, with too many different pieces of information, and we’re gonna get lost if we don’t know what we’re working with. So we also need to know where he got them, when, and how.”

Thor steps closer, eager to contribute. “The first Stone he got was the Power Stone. It was the only Stone in his Gauntlet, until he found us on the ship and stole the Tesseract.”

“FRI, write that down.” Tony orders, though he can see, even though his frantic looks to the others, from the corner of his eye in a quick glance, the projection board on the wall across the room – and FRIDAY has definitely been taking notes of everything. “Okay, Power and Space. What’s next?”

“Reality.” Rocket remembers. “That’s when we found Thor after his ship sent out a distress call. He said Thanos couldn’t get the other Stones first, and the Reality was closer, so the others went to Knowhere to get it while Thor and we headed to Nidavellir, to get him a weapon.”

“So that’s… what? Give me a color.”

“What?”

“Each Stone has a color. Give me a color.”

Rocket bristles. “I have no idea what color the Stone is, are you freaking—?”

“Red.” Thor interrupts. “The Reality Stone is red. The Power Stone is purple and the Space Stone is blue.”

“And that’s important… why?” Barton asks, unimpressed.

“Because I saw the Gauntlet and I know which ones he had based on what color custom jewelry he already added to the collection.” Tony replied, words dripping with snark. “We meet him on Titan. When he got there, he had, purple, blue, red, and orange. Which one is the orange one?”

“Soul.” Nebula and Bruce reply at the same time; one, with rapid logic, the other, with gut-wrenching agony in her voice. Nebula seems embarrassed by her outburst, shying away from Bruce’s glance with a turn of her face, and in turn, Rocket looks at her by his side with an incredibly raw look of pain on his face.

“So he got that one sometime in between the Reality and Time, because that’s what he took from Strange when we were up there.” Tony points out.

“That’s when he took Gamora.” Nebula concludes, and then stops.

Stops, as in – her entire body locks up, as if she’s been shocked with a live wire; and although she doesn’t jump, or startle, the movement is perceptible, the sudden cut of air between her words and her silence, the strangled breath that dies as it passes her lips, making no sound, like it’s blinking out of existence as soon as it manifests.

Oh.

(That’s when it happened.)

(That’s when she lost her sister.)

Tony doesn’t know Gamora, didn’t even get the chance to meet her when the Guardians found them on Titan. By then, Thanos had already taken her. But he understands. Tony feels an echo of Nebula’s pain in his own chest, a hollow thrum that stings with every heartbeat, the corners and edges still hot and sharp when they move and breathe. Aching loss. Tony can so easily imagine the kind of woman Gamora must have been – Nebula’s sister, she sure would have been just as fierce, just as precise and determined.

Maybe they were close. Maybe they weren’t. He doesn’t dare to hope for one or the other.

He has no idea if it would hurt less anyway.

If Nebula knows what happened to her – she’ll have to tell them. That’s not… That’s not fair. On one hand, he wants to hear it, they need to hear it, but it’s still not fair. To make her say the words out loud. It’s not fair that Nebula, that Tony knows for a fact takes no bullshit from anyone or anything, that snaps and snarls when she feels like the slightest inconvenience is getting too close, its not fair that she is the one averting her gaze, the dark of her eyes somehow even deeper, even hollowed, like the universe it reflects somehow has grown too large and too empty, too barren for any emotion other than sadness to fill it.

Tony wants to know what happened – but he doesn’t at the same time.

He doesn’t want her to do this.

He doesn’t want her to go back there.

(It’s not fair.)

“I was aboard Thanos’ ship when he brought her in.” Nebula confesses, head still bowed low, her eyes fixed at a random point on the floor, as if she could see the memory unfolding before her eyes like it was happening to someone else, like a movie reel playing in a way only she could see. “I had snuck in days before. I tried to kill him. But the Black Order was there and they were too many, and I was captured.”

That fucking monster. That – Tony has never felt anger such as this before.

This is merciless. It’s disgusting.

(He has to pay for that.)

“He tortured me.” Nebula admits, and it rankles that she sounds ashamed of it, like this is somehow her fault, like she could ever deserve such a treatment from that bastard that dared to call himself her father. “For days. It never ended. He took me apart, piece by piece, and left me there, pulling at the parts like I was nothing but a circuit he could destroy. I… I didn’t tell him anything. He wanted to find Gamora, and I didn’t tell him how. But he found her anyway. Probably in Knowhere. He must have captured her after he got the Reality Stone.”

There is no one who can confirm this, but it fits. The timeline fits. Rocket’s eyes go wide with shock, glistening with something that looks way too much like tears, and a deep, unsettling discomfort settles between them, uneasiness so thick it's almost solid, a foreign presence sneaking in to taunt them from the cracks between the silence.

“She was the only one who knew where the Soul Stone was. There was a map, and she found it, and burned it – but not before looking. So she knew. And Thanos knew she knew. So he… used me to make her talk.”

Why is she telling them this. Why, why.

She was captured. She was tortured.

God, Nebula.

She didn’t deserve it. It’s not fair. That was her sister.

It’s not fair.

“He could have killed me, but he didn’t. So he didn’t need to hurt her. All he had to do was to hurt me.” She mumbles. “She was always his favorite.”

Tony hates that deep down, somewhere beneath the jumble of twisted feelings swirling in his core, the nauseating mixture of dread and sorrow, the rancid taste of blood and tears that seem to stain his tongue, he still has time to feel a twinge of too familiar sympathy for Nebula’s shy admittance, like he’s making this about himself, when she is the one who’s clearly so distressed over the tale of the fall of her sister.

This is not about him.

It doesn’t matter if he knows what that’s like. To be second. To never live up to the favorite.

He knows what it’s like. But this is not about him.

There’s a beat, a pause, silent but so, so loud, like a painful pulse before a heart attack.

“You’re a daughter of Thanos.” Thor exhales, voice raspy and raw, realization shining bright like lightning in his mismatched eyes. “Aren’t you?”

Nebula gives a shaky nod.

Shit.

Barton fumbles like he suddenly took a hit to the head, shifting in his feet and mouth opening in shock, no words forthcoming, only a confused mumble and an outraged expression, as if he can’t process the information correctly in his brain. Rogers and Romanov, in turn, immediately stiffen, eyes zeroing on Nebula with uncomfortable precision, the critical stare of a threat assessment, and Tony unthinkingly jumps to her defense, stepping closer to where she’s sitting and fully prepared to step in from of her to make himself a shield if he has to.

It doesn’t escape his notice that Rocket moves closer too, his tiny hands reaching for his belt. Probably, for a weapon.

Tony knows Nebula doesn’t need his help. She might even beat him up herself for acting like she does. But it’s instinct. And because he knows this, because his mind goes so quickly through a flurry of – she’s not a threat, to oh, she’ll kill me for this, to doesn’t matter, won’t let her get hurt, to gotta change the subject, quick

All that comes out of his mouth is:

“He took her and what did you do?” He asks, because he has to keep pressing, has to keep her talking, so the others won’t have time to intervene and make any sort of accusation.

She said she tried to kill Thanos. They all heard her. She said it. Tony knows she doesn’t mean them any harm.

She wouldn’t have saved him if she did. She saved him.

He needs to make that clear.

“I escaped.” Nebula says, very pointedly, also making herself very clear and enunciating her words carefully, to make sure she cannot be misunderstood. “Most of his army started to move, so I had a chance. I went past the guards, sent a warning sign to Mantis, and asked her to meet me on Titan, because I knew that would be his meeting point. I thought we could try and ambush him.”

“And that’s when you found me.”

“That’s right.”

See? It’s simple. It’s just what it sounds like.

Tony knows she’s not lying.

Tony had seen her drive a ship straight into Thanos’ head, to charge against him with electric batons and a raging scream, asking for her sister and bloodthirsty for revenge. Tony knows in his heart, in the very core of himself, that out of all of them, Nebula has been the one who has suffered by Thanos’ hands the longest – and she deserves to be here. They are going to bring him down, they are going to undo the damage he left behind, and Nebula deserves to be here to see it. To make it happen. She is nothing like those others, the Black Order, because those bastards were just like Thanos and Nebula is not.

See, Tony asks, with eyes wide and pleading. See? She’s an ally.

The others stare back, uneasily, but they force themselves to relax. After a few seconds, they breathe, they pause, and then, they truly retreat, eyes soft and mellow again, dragged down by their grief, and there is no place left for the misplaced rage to burn beneath the bone-deep exhaustion.

Tony stutters in a sigh of relief.

And suddenly, despite how Nebula might react to his intervention, he steps forward, and decides this conversation needs to stop focusing on her right now.

“Thanos was expecting to have the Time and Mind Stones already when he got to Titan – that’s what he sent his minions for.” He proceed, with all the familiarity of a businessman, a no-nonsense, no leeway speech that now comes almost as second nature to him, forged on decades of performance and need to make himself taller among giants. He hates using it, but he’ll do it, if he has to. “He couldn’t get the Time Stone in New York, so he fought for it when he got there.”

(And he won.)

“Made us look like children fighting with sticks.” He admits with bitterness. “He was strong. He didn’t even have all the Stones yet, but he still was strong. We couldn’t stop him.”

(Tony couldn’t stop him.)

“He stabbed you.” Nebula says, as if it’s a reassurance. As if that is an explanation for his failure.

“I tried all I could.” Tony admits, which only makes everything worse. Because he did. He did try his best, he used every weapon in his arsenal, and it still wasn’t enough. “In the end, Strange gave him the Stone and we couldn’t do anything.”

Great. Amazing change of subject, Tony. Way to go.

The workshop goes deadly-quiet. Hopelessness envelops them like tar, tainting and consuming, dragging down in waves of thick, vile floods of black, until they are all swallowed by the dark.

“He took the Stone and left. Opened a portal and stepped through, just like you said. And then we were up there, trying to get back. That’s when it happened.” Tony says in a murmur, looking down, fearing the others might see too much if they can see his eyes. “What happened down here? When he… got the last one?”

Because Tony knows what happened for Thanos to get the last one.

He killed Vision.

“We took Vision to Wakanda.” Rogers recalls, even his usual straightforward, almost earnest tone muted by heavy mourning. “We needed to get the Stone out of Vision’s head before Thanos got the chance to get too close. The only one who could help was Shuri, King T’Challa’s sister.”

“Heard she’s a genius.” Tony grumbles, the joke falling short even before it leaves his lips.

“She is.” Natasha confirms.

Is. Present tense.

Tony will take this miserable amount of relief if he can.

“Vision was more than just the Stone.” Bruce says, and by the way he says it, it’s not the first time he’s done this speech. “We thought maybe if we could remove it, Vision would still be well enough that he could live without it. And Wanda could destroy the Stone.”

“Wanda’s powers came from the Mind Stone.” Tony remembers, from his conversation with Bruce in the med bay. “You thought of using the Stone’s power against itself.”

“Vision’s idea, actually.” Bruce admits. “I don’t know how, but he figured it out. And he was right, because it worked.”

But not enough, right?

It worked.

But not enough.

“Thanos sent an army ahead. We tried to hold them back while Shuri worked in the lab to remove the Stone from Vision.” Rogers continues.

Tony swallows around nothing, mouth oddly dry. “Chitauri?”

Rogers shakes his head. “Something called the Outriders. Gigantic ships of them. We were in a tough spot, but we could hold them. And then suddenly… This huge alien steps off a portal with a Gauntlet in his hand, and he goes through us like we’re invisible.”

“Knocked every single one of us down.” Natasha grows. “Didn’t even break a sweat.”

“Wanda destroyed the Mind Stone, but after Thanos got Time… We had already lost.” Bruce says, and it sounds like it hurts, like it physically pains him to say it – like the words drag like knives, “I saw it. She blew it to pieces, and all Thanos did was use the Time Stone and put it back together.”

(Like Tony warned them.)

(The Time Stone was the best chance.)

(He told them.)

“The Time Stone is the most dangerous of them all.” Natasha says. “Because whatever we do, if he has that one, he can simply undo it. It never ends.”

“So that one is the one we need first.” Tony concludes. “Out of all of them, the most dangerous has to go first. The others may pack a punch, but we can’t do anything if he keeps undoing all of our attacks. Either we keep him busy so he can’t use it, or we get it from him before he even gets the chance.”

“What about the Mind Stone? That doesn’t sound good either.” Rocket asks, frowning at the board. “You guys have anythin’ on that one?”

“More than we’d like.” Rhodey grumbles, huffing.

Undeterred, Rogers explains, “After Loki was gone, the scepter went to SHIELD – and SHIELD was HYDRA, so someone took the scepter and shipped it off to Strucker, in Sokovia. There, he used it to experiment on people, trying to create superhumans.”

“Wanda and Pietro.” Barton says in a whisper.

“The only ones who survived.” Natasha nods, somberly.

“We don’t know if Pietro had anything other than his physical abilities, but Wanda’s powers were directly involved with the Mind Stone, even more than her brother’s.” Rogers points out.

“That was in…” Rhodey prompts.

“2015.” Bruce supplies. “And it means that people can be used as carriers of the energy of the Stones too, not just objects. Again, also explains the mind control.”

“Wouldn’t that make Wanda and Pietro hosts?” Natasha inquires. “What’s the difference between being a host and just being injected with power from a Stone?”

“The Stone wasn’t killing them.” Rogers says. “Not that we know of. It changed them, that’s all.”

“I – I don’t know if we can call them hosts.” Bruce admits. “Strucker was the one using it – We don’t know if the Stones make any differentiation between host and owner, or host or carrier, or any distinction at all. Maybe it’s like locality influence. They affect – and are affected – but anything that comes too close. And that’s why they need to be kept in lock.”

“Yeah, I have a question.” Barton interrupts, frowning. “If there was a super powerful stone or whatever inside that scepter, where did Loki find that thing?”

“Thanos gave it to him.” Bruce explains. “It was always Thanos. He was the one who sent Loki. Loki was probably mind controlled too, if you think about it.”

“I’d rather not.” Barton hisses, but lacking any real heat. “And if Thanos was the one who sent Loki, why would he give him an Infinity Stone? Even if it was inside the scepter? Doesn’t that seem weird, to just hand over one of the strongest weapons in your arsenal to a guy you don’t even know if he can do the job?”

“Maybe he didn’t know?” Rocket suggests.

“Oh, he knew.” Nebula counters, her voice scratching with the weight of her sarcasm. “He was looking for those Stones for years. Far longer than you think.”

“Then why would he give it away?!”

“He didn’t. He knew he would get it back.”

“Yeah, I guess, but he had to come all the way here to pick it up.” Rocket grumbles. “Was it really worth it? Giving it to someone else, not knowing if it would ever come back?”

“Thanos doesn’t think he can lose.” Nebula snarls. “He thinks whatever happens, the Stones will always come to him. He’s insane. He thinks it’s his… destiny to have them.”

“Like he’s their final host?” Bruce suggests.

“Like he’s the only one who won’t die if he uses all six.” Nebula adds, in a voice that’s all venom and acid. “Which he didn’t. So I guess he was right.

“Not if we make this work.” Thor argues.

“We know—” Tony starts, but then has to stop, because his voice cracks and his breath stutters, starting to get too overwhelmed by the onslaught of discussion and information that’s being brought forward, and he takes a moment to blink away the blurriness in his sight and to gather air, before continuing. “We know it’s possible to use them separately. Strange used the Time Stone, Loki used the Tesseract, HYDRA used the Mind Stone. Individually, they can be held.”

“How does that help us stealing the stones from Thanos? He’s got all six.” Rocket bitterly complains. “Are we gonna get them one by one?”

“If we have to.” Tony snaps.

“And where are we gonna put ‘em?”

“In the Gauntlet. Our Gauntlet.”

“But doesn’t that mean we should be focusing on the Gauntlet?” Rocket insists. “Maybe it’s not that tough. Maybe it doesn’t matter what they’re made of, only matters what they can do. We just have to go out there and find some more of this special alien material. It might not even be hard to find! Ronan had a staff that could hold the Power Stone! So whatever it was made of, the Kree probably have more!”

“Who’s Ronan?” Rhodey asks in an awkward whisper.

“The Kree guy who fought my sister for the Stone.” Nebula answers, with a shrug. “An idiot.”

“You want to search for the Kree and ask for their metal?” Thor squints, as if it’s an idiotic idea. And maybe it is. Tony has no freaking idea. “What’s next, should we find some more Dark Elves to help us steal the Reality Stone from Thanos?”

“Look, I’m tryin’ to lay down our options, okay?” Rocket barks defensively.

“We shouldn’t leave Earth it’s absolutely necessary.” Rogers says, in a tone that is all command and authority, which only makes the absurdity of his words even more… absurd. “That would mean separating us and that’s the last thing we need now. If these Kree are dangerous, it’s best if we stay clear. They probably lost people, like we did. Getting unwanted visitors will probably not be something they’ll be happy with.”

But that’s a good point.

That’s… that’s an extremely good point.

Tony belatedly wonders if there are other planets out there who are suffering from the same thing they are now. If they are decaying like Earth is, or by something else, or if there’s any other left by now. They have no way of knowing. Almost four billion in their planet only – but how many more out there? How many trillions, quadrillions – if there’s any way to even count them all?

Shit.

Both Thor and Rocket nod, although Rocket seems very dismayed by the quick rejection of his plan.

“We need to know what they’re made of so we can stop them from working if he tries to attack us.” Tony says irritably. “Knowing what they’re made of can help us know what they can do. He used one of them to throw a goddamned moon at me. Removed it from orbit. I don’t know about you, but something that does that is not normal for me and I’m not gonna let magic be the explanation for it. I don’t do magic. I do science. And if we’re going out there, and fighting that guy, magic is not going to be enough!”

“Magic is just science you don’t understand yet.” Thor unexpectedly says, and Tony has to stop and turn to look at him, dumbfounded. Thor looks back with a disarmingly soft look in his eyes. “Jane used to say that.”

“He threw a moon at you?” Rhodey asks, almost aggressive in his shock. “The hell do you mean by that?”

“Saturn is not gonna miss a moon, it has a lot of them, it’ll be fine.”

“That’s not the point!”

“No, the point is that we’re arguing about things that don’t matter when we should be going over what we have already! We have a lot!”

Tony looks at the board.

Holy shit.

“We…” Tony breathes. “We have a lot of work.”

The silence in the room is very, very telling of what they all feel when they realize just how difficult this will be.

“But that’s important information.” Tony admits, pointing to Rocket in affirmation, after a brief second of consideration.

“What?” Rocket asks, confused.

“What you said about the Kree guy. That’s important. FRI, write that down. That means it’s not just this Uru metal that works, because if Thor says it’s special, some random guy wouldn’t have it just laying around, right? Right. So it must be something else. We might have other options, maybe here on Earth. It would be the best thing – we don’t have much time to figure out how we’re gonna do this before…”

“Before the dust kills us all.” Rocket says curtly, eyes dark with sadness.

“Yeah.” Tony agrees, his lips twisting in bitter resignation.

Tony taps his fingers against his thigh, jittery, scratching his lower lip with his teeth in a nervous tick – should he pull up the simulations of the alloys for the armor? It seemed to hold on pretty well, all things considered. Maybe some of the other alloys could hold on even better, if he went back to the standard model instead of nanotech. What about – can he make something directly with Badassium? Should he? He never tried. He doesn’t know if he’ll have time. The best thing would be if they had a sample of something to start with. Strange’s goddamned necklace would’ve been perfect, fuck. The scepter is gone and so is the Tesseract, but maybe in old SHIELD files—

Natasha suddenly stands up, scaring the shit out of everybody. “The weapons from Thanos’ army.”

They turn to her, clearly not following.

“What about them?” Bruce inquires.

“Alien metal.”

“The Chitauri also seemed like they had a different kind of metal, but after SHIELD collected the weapons it was all regular metal boosted up with Infinity Stone juice.” Tony shrugs, crossing his arms defensively. He hopes no one asks why he was reading reports on Chitauri metal in the first place.

“One of them stabbed Vision and the wound stopped him from phasing.” Natasha frantically says, as if she’s unsettled that they don’t understand the severity of her revelation. “What kind of metal could do that, even if it was enhanced with an Infinity Stone?”

He doesn’t know.

“It’s worth the try.” Bruce insists, looking at Tony with pleading eyes. “Whatever Thanos gave them, even if it’s not exactly a new kind of element, it was definitely pretty strong. Maybe it could give us a hint that would speed this up.”

Tony rubs his eyes with a hand roughly, so roughly that it actually is not relaxing at all, just painful, a sting of hot sharp static burning at the back of his head. God, this is exhausting.

“Call Okoye.” Rogers says, to Natasha, probably, while Tony drags his hand across his face with a tired sigh. “Ask her if they kept the spear we got in the woods. Tell her we’re picking it up as soon as possible.”

“You’re flying back to Wakanda?” Tony asks, frowning deeply.

“We have to gather everything we can.”

“I thought we shouldn’t be separated.” Thor raises an eyebrow, shuffling uncomfortably where he stands.

“Just enough so we could bring them here.”

“The Quinjet is gonna go out of commission soon, it’ll be too dark to fly anywhere.” Rhodey points out dejectedly.

“So I should go.” Thor says. “Stormbreaker is faster.”

“Actually.” Bruce steps forward to Thor, a little frantic. “I think we might need your weapon too, Thor. If it’s the only thing here that is made of this… Uru metal, we need to take a look at what it is.”

“You want to destroy it?” Thor asks, as if Bruce has just shot him in the chest.

“No!” Bruce scrambles for a better wording. “Just a sample. Maybe some tests. But we need you to be here.”

“How fast does the jet fly?” Nebula asks, suddenly.

“At max speed, Wakanda is about eleven hours away.” Natasha replies.

“I’ll make it eight.” Nebula confidently affirms, and stands up. “Our ship is faster. Let them know I’m coming and have the weapon ready. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

“Wait, now, hold on a second – your ship? What ship?” Rocket demands.

“The big orange one. You know. The idiot’s.”

“You have Quill’s ship?!” Rocket exclaims. “Hey, it’s not your ship, it’s our ship. It’s my ship!”

“Whatever.” Nebula says dismissively, and walks out with no fuss whatsoever.

Hey! You’re not walking outta here alone, taking my ship, I’m comin’ too!” Rocket shouts, hurrying behind her with his short legs, annoyance crystal clear in his eyes. Hastily, he turns to Natasha and Rogers, never slowing his tiny steps, and growls, “Tell them not to shoot us! We’re getting that spear and comin’ back!”

They leave, boisterously and suddenly, and somehow, the room seems even colder when they do. The awkward silence that falls upon them after Rocket’s irritated screams fade away is somehow hollow and too overbearing, disrupting the odd back and forth they had going on, the live wire of information and tension that buzzed around the room going from person to person, like two parts of a circuit have suddenly been removed.

Rogers takes the opportunity of silence to step forward, to stand beside Natasha, and after exchanging a quick look with her, he says:

“We’ll go looking for the sanctum. If we find anyone who can help, we’ll bring them back here with us.”

“Bleecker Street.” Bruce informs helpfully, even though, when Tony looks up, Rogers is staring directly at him, and Tony is honestly being less then helpful right now and he knows it. “I can’t say the exact number but it – if it’s still there, it’s the building with a hole… on the... ceiling.”

Huh. Weird. They make a face at Bruce, but Bruce only shakes his head, somehow embarrassed, and gestures a dismissal with his hand.

“We’ll be as quick as we can.” Natasha assures. “We’re on comms. Anything comes up, let us know.”

“We will.” Tony nods.

“I’m coming too.” Barton interjects, stepping closer to Natasha. “Can’t really help with the Stones stuff, but a retrieval mission I can handle. Just point the way.”

“You’re sure?” Natasha asks, a little lower, and – so, so softly. So kindly. It somehow fills Tony with sadness.

“Yeah.” Barton clears his throat, to try to hide the roughness of his voice. “I’m sure.”

And they both look at Rogers – and it’s so familiar. It’s so familiar, so instinctual, almost second nature. It’s ridiculous how easy it is for them to fall back into this routine, despite all reasons why it shouldn’t be.

Barton to fall in step with Natasha. Natasha to defer to Rogers. Rogers to lead them into the jaws of death.

They fall into their roles like dominos. Like they’re meant to. As if gravity itself pulls them all into this one place, this one spot – And Tony fears, for a moment, that this was inevitable. It is… the scariest, most horrible idea he can possibly fathom. That this would always have to happen, this tragedy, this cursed fate – that this is the only thing that would have dragged them back together after what happened, and in doing so, even if it changed everything… It hasn’t. It hasn’t changed a thing.

It’s not like Tony can’t see the logic in it, because he can. Even if Tony doesn’t always choose the most logical path, it’s not like can’t see it. Based on their abilities, it’s fairly safe to assume they’d default to this organization. Natasha and Barton have always been more comfortable with following Rogers’ orders than anything else. It’s also only logical Bruce and Tony would stay back together and work on the science, and of course Rhodey would stay with Tony, and Thor… Well, Thor can always make room for himself wherever he pleases, he thinks. It’s not about bias, not really. But it’s hard not to notice, how similar it is, and hard not to wonder, if this is how is going to be.

And that’s stupid, and unfair, and a little too childish, because at the same time – should this bother him? Should he be glad? He doesn’t know.

They shouldn’t divide, but it would be a lie to say Tony doesn’t need some space.

It’s selfish. He knows it is.

But he’s tired. He’s tired enough from the absolute madness that’s displayed on that panel, of the incredibly taxing and despairingly rushed tests and theories they’ll have to come up with and discard and cut down at lightning speed, with the constant reminder that literally the entire world – the entire universe – is counting on them to make it work. Even if they don’t know it, everyone’s fate now depends on them, the Avengers. Who weren’t there because of a personal feud, of something so ridiculous it should never have happened, not when this threat existed out there.

Should they divide?

He doesn’t know if that’s best.

But he needs to breathe. That’s what he needs right now.

He needs his workshop a little emptier. He needs his thoughts not to be so scattered, so filled with white noise, to focus only on the information on the board and nothing else.

If he had the time, he’d go after Wong himself. He’d go to Wakanda himself.

(God, he would have died for the chance to do that in another moment.)

(Another life.)

But he can’t. So this is the next best thing. It’s dangerous, but it is what it is.

“Alright.” Tony agrees in a heavy exhale. “You get Wong, we’ll get this going on our side.”

The phrasing is a little distasteful, maybe. It certainly leaves a somewhat dry feeling in his mouth, like he’s just swallowed chalk; But it seems like it’s just him, because no one else reacts as if it sounded as bad as it felt. It’s a temporary divide, Tony should keep in mind. It’s to make it faster. They’ll come back. And so will Nebula and Rocket, and then, they’ll fit all the pieces together and they’ll make this right. That’s all it is.

Tony shouldn’t fear the fact that they are leaving, if they’re coming back.

They have to.

At least, this time. This time, they have to.

(Stupid.)

(That’s stupid. Stop that.)

They’ll be fine. It’s not so bad outside that they can’t handle themselves. And they have to do it now, while it’s still not dark.

“Tony.” Someone calls, and it takes a moment for Tony to realize it’s Rogers, Rogers, who’s heading for the door behind Natasha and Barton, but is hesitating, Rogers, with his brows furrowed and deep lines creasing his forehead, Rogers, who looks like he might actually come back if Tony tells him to.

(Do you want to?)

(Would you?)

“Yeah?”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Rogers’ jaw twitches, so intensely not even the beard can hide the motion. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“Be careful.” Tony nods, a little too rushed; Too casual and too worried, too dismissive and too pleading, always, always too much. It’s stupid. He won’t dwell on it, not now. “Call in if anything goes wrong.”

Rogers falters—

Rogers nods.

Rogers goes.

And then, all that’s left is Tony, Bruce, Thor, and Rhodey. And a board filled to the brim.

It’s them, and years and years of unfiltered information; It’s them and the possible answer to their survival, hidden between lines and pictures and old data files, and he’s not sure they’ll be quick enough to find it. It’s Tony, and the shivers down his back at the sight of Rogers and the other two leaving, with both whispers of stay and go trapped inside his mouth, and no strength or desire to utter them out loud – and a group at his back, silent and watching, and unaware, unaware of the storm that rages within, oblivious to the ache that echoes inside, that Tony hides after a long blink, a breath, and a shudder.

Tony turns, and they are staring.

They are waiting.

“Let’s get to work.” He says.

And just for now, he forgets what’s beyond those doors – not the sky, not the dust. But the sound of fading footsteps, and the feeling that the room is, even for a brief second, even emptier than it seems.

Notes:

I just want to send a quick message to everyone who left a review in the last chapter, and unfortunately didn't get a reply before this chapter was posted: sorry for the delay, but don't worry! I read your comment, for sure, and I deeply appreciate your support! I'll get back to you all as soon as I can - But I am on vacation right now, so forgive me if it takes a little while!
But I'll do my best to reply when I have some free time!

For now, thank you all for reading and commenting! I'll see you in the next one ;)

Chapter 10: Chapter 10

Notes:

Here comes the nerdiness. Again, not a scientist, but definitely a very big enthusiast of science and, particularly, in this case, chemistry and physics. Unfortunately, I lack the technical knowledge to make sure this plot is going to be 100% accurate, so do forgive me, and science is weird anyway, so might as well have some fun. I'm not going to give you a lecture, but this is going to get very... theoretical, shall I say. I will push the realism as far as it can go - and maybe, when I'm done, you're gonna wish that I hadn't skahdakjsfkh

As for our emotional journey, next on my list is a person we don't usually talk about in SteveTony fics, but I don't see any reason why not. He has much more to offer than it might seem at a first glance. The MCU roped us in with promises of family and close friendships, but a lot of it fell apart for the sake of dramatic effect, and this is me, rectifying that mistake.

As we near the ending of Pepper's arc, let's take a break and consider Bruce for a moment.

Bruce's personality is a breath of fresh air, amongst the Avengers. He is so nuanced and so... careful but unrepentantly straighforward at the same time that compared to the absolute mess that is our main duo, writing Bruce actually feels like giving my brain a rest. His origin story also puts a lot of things into perspective, a perspective Tony could surely benefit from. Not just that - Tony and Bruce hit off pretty well since the start, and this friendship, although not always presented in the right light in canon, is very clear cut and with a potential that AoU only ever brushed the surface of. I can't way to unveil it more.

Consider this a Part I to Bruce. His involvement with Tony goes deeper than you'd think at first glance, so it'll take more than one chapter to talk about it, especially when packed with plot - but Bruce's contribution is essential to some matters we'll deal with further down the line, so don't think this isn't important now. Remember when I said I wasn't done with CW? I meant that. And it's going to be relevant very, very soon. And Bruce is going to play a part it this.

Enjoy the chapter, friends. We have a new addition to our cast, another thing I'm very happy about - and please check the end notes, because I have something very excited to share with you there!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“I don’t like this, Tony. I don’t like this at all.”

Tony is watching the doors of the workshop when Bruce says it, thoughts lost on what lies beyond the glass, the echoes of footsteps up the stairs and the cold chill of the wind that somehow worms its way into the corridors of the Compound; like the dust had, skimming along surfaces in a rush of freezing breath, that makes hairs on his arms stand on end in alert. The words seem to catch up with him late, a delay thick and heavy like fog in his brain, all tendrils of thought lost to another focus, far away.

It’s dangerous, out there. Tony has to actively remind himself he has more to worry about for now. In here. Lots and lots to worry about.

But it’s hard. It’s hard, when he knows something unpredictable is happening out there, that they’re flying blind, completely, and their time is short. Even if Bruce’s voice is hesitant and shaky – even if Tony can hear him pacing, it’s like hearing it from across a thick wall, a sound that comes out muffled and distant, because everything goes out of focus when his attention turns razor-sharp towards the doors, to the low, quiet, but never silent burning freeze of panic simmering beneath his skin, crawling inside him like it’s alive. He feels like a child. Like he’s five, and he’s hopeless to do anything while everyone else walks out the door and he has no guarantee they’ll come back. Like he lacks the words, or the spine, to ask them to stay. Or maybe not stay, but… promise to come back. Promise it’ll be okay.

It’s futile, to beg for reassurance. He knows. No one has no idea what’s gonna happen.

But he aches for it anyway.

(They’ll be fine.)

(They’ll be okay.)

A beat passes. The silence turns awkward. Startling thanks to the heavy discomfort, Tony blinks and turns his face from the door, towards Bruce and Rhodey, who are watching him with questioning, concerned eyes. “What’s that?”

“This. Separating.” Bruce gestures vaguely, and he daringly steps close to the table that displays the mockup Gauntlet, leaning over it with his hands, eyes tired and face grim. “I thought the point was to not to lose sight of each other. Who knows what can happen when they’re out there?”

“They’re grown-ups, they can handle it.” Tony assures, in a tone that’s far too soft and gentle for the dismissiveness of his words. Seeing Bruce this uncomfortable, this ungrounded – it has always made something inside Tony go unexpectedly mellow, a twinge of sympathy that makes his insides feel like they’re liquid. It even makes the words sound more confident than Tony truly feels.

“I know, but what are we dealing with here? We’re not even sure. What is it, exactly, Tony?” Bruce shrugs, verging on despairing, voice rising with a worrisome speed and intensity. “We don’t know how long we have, or how the people out there are taking this! If we separate, we are surrendering ourselves to whatever other danger we might not see coming!”

Rhodey takes half a step forward unthinkingly, responding to the spike of raw and uncontrolled emotion in Bruce’s voice, and both Tony and Thor flinch – not because of Bruce, but of Rhodey’s reaction, and a suffocating feeling of grief and shame falls upon Tony like a heavy blanket, despite not being him the one who moved, but far too aware of how the movement will be perceived by Bruce’s mind.

And just like he predicts, Bruce’s gaze fills with something darkly sorrowful, something that holds a terrible lack of surprise, and old pain of being pushed away and treated like something other, something that does not belong and must be feared, even if he wasn’t turning green.

Rhodey, to his credit, realizes immediately what he has done. He stutters in place, the movement all to noticeable in the bulky form of his walking aids, and the action is so unlike his usual unflappable self that Tony almost wants to say something to reassure him too.

“I’m sorry.” Bruce says, and his voice is soft, and quiet, and Tony hates how easily he falls into the role of the meek, small man he used to pretend to be.

“No, man, I’m sorry.” Rhodey concedes, sounding ashamed. “That wasn’t cool of me.”

“Your concern is… justified.” Bruce chuckles self-deprecatingly.

“It’s not, and it doesn’t give me the right to act like you’re dangerous when we know you’re not.” Rhodey counters. “My bad.”

Bruce looks at Rhodey as if he expects him to laugh at his face and say it’s a joke – but Rhodey has nothing but a steadfast, sure look in his eyes, the same unwavering conviction that carried him through his entire life, though MIT and Air Force and everything else, the sense of trust in his friends and teammates and the fierce instinct to protect them against everything, even their own demons. Tony knows that look very, very well. He’s been on the aim of that look more times than he can count; and Rhodey wouldn’t be Rhodey if he wasn’t like this – steady, understanding, and so loyal it makes the heart feel tight at the idea of being one of his’. There are no lies in Rhodey’s eyes. Never. And Bruce must see it too; Because he pauses, his eyes scanning Rhodey’s face, and after a beat, he relaxes, his shoulders no longer hunching, the wry smile disappearing from his face, replaced with a serious, but heartfelt sincerity when he says:

“Thanks, Rhodes.”, and they all can breathe again.

“It’s okay.” Tony assures, lowly. “I know you’re stressed. We all are.”

“You don’t have to worry. Hulk is not…” Bruce exhales tiredly. “He’s not coming out.”

Tony frowns. “What do you mean? Still?”

Bruce raises his shoulders, looking lost. “I’ve got nothing. I tried asking, screaming – we were in the middle of the battle and he refused to come out. I don’t know what happened.”

“I didn’t know he could do that.” Tony says, the question only half implied.

“Me neither.” Bruce admits.

“Did something happen? Between you two?”

The question feels a little weird in his mouth as he says it, but he can’t think of any other way to phrase it better. Maybe that’s the most accurate description Tony can make, even if it does sound like he’s asking if Bruce and the Mean Green broke up in some sort of way. How else would he describe it? Bruce always spoke of Hulk as if he was a different person – so Tony tried his best to think of it that way too, to be respectful of Bruce’s feelings on his other half. Honestly, he doesn’t know if there’s any accuracy to it on scientific terms, but he thinks it doesn’t matter much; Bruce is the one living with him, inside his skin, every day.

All Tony knows is that it sounded like… Like a tough relationship.

He could only imagine what it must be like, to share your body and half your mind with someone else, someone that’s not quite you, a someone you can’t control and is known for doing stuff you will regret. Even worse to know that someone is you, in some part; Because the serum, even the bad one Bruce took, was meant only to enhance what was already inside, good or bad. It must be scary, to know what the rage you keep locked inside of you can do. Tony doesn’t even know where the rage comes from – it wouldn’t have been right to ask. It’s not his business. But it is Bruce, in a way, because it’s his body and, in some levels, his brain – and the experience is shared by them both, being seen and being judged, having their actions scrutinized with barely any mercy even when they are not fully in control.

All Tony has to draft comparison are the years of alcohol-induced haze, and the shame he pretends he didn’t feel the next morning, even though he couldn’t remember doing the things he did.

He was not fully in control – but he was the one who brought the bottle to his own lips. Just like Bruce is not in control of the Hulk – but he was the one who created him anyway.

Shame is a feeling Tony is very well acquainted with. Bruce too. Though most of Tony’s shame is no one’s fault but his own, Tony’s pat on his shoulder and the colluding whispers of we’re both monsters, buddy were not spoken without truth in them; Tony knows Bruce feels shame, and even if Tony doesn’t believe Bruce is deserving of half of it, probably even less than that, he can recognize it when he sees it. He can’t make it stop. He doesn’t know how – and even if he did, Bruce wouldn’t let him. They are both mirrored images of men who have gone too far with their pursues, science and knowledge turning into jagged edges of knives plunged into their backs by their own hands, bleeding regret instead of blood.

They know shame very, very well.

He wonders if Hulk does too, in some way.

“The last time he was out was when Thanos attacked the ship.” Bruce recalls, somberly. “There was a fight, and I was thrown back to Earth still as Hulk – I came back when I crashed into Strange’s sanctum.”

“He fought Thanos?” Tony follows along with the story, frowning.

Bruce mumbles a little. “More like Thanos beat him up.”

“And after that, he didn’t come out anymore?”

“Yeah.”

Ok, so – Tony – Tony is not sure if he is the one reading too much into this, or if Bruce is the one ignoring the somewhat obvious correlations between these facts, but it kind of sounds like –

“Sounds like he’s afraid of something.” Rhodey offers, echoing Tony’s thoughts perfectly.

“What, Hulk?” Bruce lets out humorless laugh. “Nah. The guy is not afraid of anything.”

“It would be a normal reaction.” Tony tries to say as sensibly as he can.

“We’ve fought aliens before.” Bruce reasons. “Hulk fought the Leviathans and Loki and all sorts of crazy beings before – he never felt fear. Now he’s afraid of Thanos?”

“Can you tell?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows. “What he feels?”

“I could. Sort of. It’s hard not to have an idea, when we share a body. It’s like residual chemical discharge – when he’s gone and I’m back, the rush still hasn’t completely gone, so I get pieces of it.”

“So you’d know what’s happening to him?” Rhodey presses, not unkindly, but still firm.

“I don’t know.” Bruce flails a little, erratic. “It’s not the same now. I lost time. After he came out to fight Ultron, I never came back. Like I was sleeping. For all I know, I had been Hulk for two years when Thor found me.”

“You weren’t aware of it? At all?”

“No. Maybe – Not exactly, I can feel some part of him still in here. Hiding somewhere, inside. But I can’t talk to him, or know what he’s thinking, not now, and not then. I have a sense of what he does sometimes, but that’s it.”

“So you have no idea what’s keeping him in there?” Tony concludes.

Bruce exhales sharply, shaking his head. “My guess is… He didn’t want to be pushed back again. You know? He… He spent two years on the driver’s seat and something happened to him that made him… pull back. On purpose. Up there he wouldn’t let me out, but down here, he doesn’t want to come up, for anything.”

So it’s Thanos, but also not. It’s the first time Tony has heard Bruce describe Hulk’s feelings and their symbiotic relationship with such complexity.

“We were trapped on a planet… I don’t know how I got there, or when. Hulk shut me out completely. Where Thor found me, found the Hulk, I hadn’t been awake in years.” Bruce tells them, voice nearly dream-like, as if he can see the events play out right before his eyes as he recalls them. “In that planet, they… worshipped him. Like he was this big, amazing fighter, not a monster. They had a parade for him. I think living in a place where he wasn’t feared made him…”

Not for the first time, Tony wonders if it’s something that developed over time, of if initially was Bruce’s refusal to work with the Hulk and not against it that prevented him finding a way of living peacefully with it before he could fall into the despair of losing control. Tony can understand the need of suppressing the feelings and things that make you feel ashamed – but since Bruce insists so much that Hulk is another person, isn’t a good strategy to treat him as ally, not as a beast to set loose when needed, while still fearing it?

If the Hulk has some private reason not to show up to the fight, even when Bruce tries to force him to… Seems like Tony hasn’t been giving Hulk as much credit as he was due, then. Maybe Bruce hasn’t either. They need the big guy, they could certainly use his help – but isn’t just as well that he could refuse, like any of them, like Barton could have, to just… accept their fate and settle with the bad hand they’ve been dealt?

Maybe he’s scared. Maybe he can feel fear. He got his ass beaten and he’s scared to get out and face that reality, or face the same enemy, and lose again. God knows Tony knows how that feels like. Or maybe he’s ashamed. Maybe he doesn’t want to come back to a place where people only called him when it was convenient, then acted like he was a monster for even showing up. Maybe he’s tired of trying and failing, trying and failing, trying to do good, and always having his attempts to backfire when he couldn’t control the damage he caused.

(Going a bit too deep on that one, aren’t you?)

(Projecting much?)

(Calm down for a second.)

But it’s true. The more he thinks about it – it’s true. We’re monsters, buddy, but they’re not just two. They’re three. Three monsters, of science and madness, trapped between hope and hopelessness, paving ways to hell with all the good intentions that have fallen short.

Why else would he do it? Why would he keep Bruce locked away, if not as payback for being kept hidden like a skeleton in a closet? Why hide, when he was parading himself to this foreign world, fighting and reveling on it, when every time he showed up before was only when Bruce asked, and with all the reluctance of someone who doesn’t want you to come?

He is a separate person, Tony realizes. Fully.

And if there’s something inside Bruce where they overlap, maybe it’s not just the rage.

“What happened with you when you were out there?” Rhodey kindly inquires, moving closer and setting himself down onto a workbench, the bulk of the exoskeleton barely looking mechanic at all, his movements slow and fluid, and his entire posture exudes a deep sensation of trustworthiness, of eager desire to help, a soft, understanding posture that to the day, makes Tony recall fond memories of college, when he least deserved it, but when Rhodey became the rock he is to this day in Tony’s life.

“It doesn’t matter.” Bruce shakes his head.

“It kind of does.” Rhodey counters.

“We have more pressing issues than if the Hulk is actually having problems or is just taking a nap.” Bruce smiles sardonically.

“But if your guy isn’t joining us when we go after Thanos, we need to know.” Rhodey points out. “We’re gonna need to get you some equipment to give you a way to fight. The Hulkbuster is not in good shape, but we can’t let you go out there with no backup.”

Bruce’s eyes widen a bit, like he’s shocked by Rhodey’s words.

“That is…” Rhodey drags. “Assuming you’re joining us in the fight.”

“I – I am.” Bruce stutters, like he’s choking on something. “I am. I’m not – I’m not gonna sit here while you guys risk your lives out there. This is my responsibility as much as it’s yours. We have to do this together.”

Tony snaps his head to the side in a reflex of suppressing his flinch – but not fast enough that Rhodey doesn’t catch it.

Shit.

“I’ll fix her.” Tony eagerly offers. “That armor is the best thing I have to keep you safe on the field. I won’t have time to make another one from scratch, but repair and upgrade is easy – she’ll be as good as new.”

“It’ll be an honor to have you in the battle with us.” Thor gently adds, the kindhearted and supportive tone of his voice only hitting deeper after his long silence, a touch of softness that they all so rarely remember Thor is capable of, for all his strength and size.

He steps forward as lays a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, and Tony is surprised by how familiar they suddenly look, how odd it is to see them so open and close to each other, like their friendship has deepened in ways they have no idea while they weren’t looking.

“Banner has seven PhD’s.” Thor smiles. “Such knowledge will surely be helpful when devising our strategy to defeat the enemy.”

Bruce smiles, a breathy laugh, barely audible, escaping his lips as he shakes his head, and Tony is sure he missed something.

But God, it’s really good to see Bruce laugh. Thanks, Thor.

“Boss.” FRIDAY suddenly interrupts, her voice calm but impossible to ignore through the speakers. “I’m sorry to interrupt – It seems like the Benatar is having some issues and it’s not possible to fly it at the moment.”

“What’s wrong?” Tony’s brows furrow in confusion. “The ship was working just fine, Nebula flew us here in it.”

“I apologize, I do not know.”

“Do they need help?” Thor inquires, gazing quickly at them all as if to assess if he should be moving when they are.

“They are requesting permission to access the hangar and the tools to fix the ship, Boss. It seems like something might be stuck on the interior that is preventing the motors from functioning correctly.”

This is not good. They have a problem with their spaceship now? Damn it – they’re gonna need the Benatar. Once they’re done with this – and they will be, Tony will make sure they find a solution to this mess, even if it’s the last thing he’ll do – the Benatar is the only viable option they have to transport a large group of people across space while they look for Thanos. Thor has that… weird, glowy thing he does whenever he wants to travel, but they can’t rely on that. Tony now realizes his Reactor is Tesseract-based tech, but at the end of the day, he’s an engineer, not a physicist, and wormholes and space travel and that sort of stuff is not his thing.

Wormholes especially. Even if he can make one with the Arc Reactor someday, he’s not sure he’s going to. He’s not sure he can handle the idea.

He really hopes this doesn’t turn into a problem.

(Knowing their luck, it probably will.)

But he really hopes it doesn’t.

“Give them access. Also send up the Mark KO, they might need an extra hand.”

“That a new armor?” Rhodey asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Simulation dummy. I needed someone to box with after Pepper stole Happy from me.”

The mention of Happy is like being doused in ice-cold water unexpectedly. He’s not even aware of what he said until after he said it, and when he hears the name come out of his own mouth, he’s suddenly reminded of why they’re even here in the first place.

“We better get back to work.” Bruce reminds them softly, and they all shuffle a bit awkwardly in place before approaching the worktables, readjusting to the mindset necessary to focus on the pressing concerns displayed on the projection board before them, if not a little hesitant to begin.

It’s not a waste of time, talking about these things. It’s not. Not just because it is true that they need to know if Bruce has been having some sort of problem with the Hulk – but they’re also about to throw themselves back into a fight, the fight of their lives, after almost three years without seeing each other. They don’t have time to train. They’re gonna have to wing it. And they… They have been separated for years. Tony hasn’t seen them in three years, even longer than Rogers and the others. And the circumstances definitely weren’t the same. Tony has missed Thor and Bruce—

(He has missed the others too, but he’s a coward—)

— and he wants to know what happened to them while they weren’t there. He needs to know. Tony needs some secure ground to land on in al this mess, he needs them to be prepared to hold on tight to each other, or as tight as they can, because they’re already so fragile in so many fronts that he can’t allow another to be formed just because he was careless.

But they have to work.

They have to keep going.

“Okay.” Tony exhales, touching the tabletop with his fingertips in a purely dramatic gesture, something of a flourish like would do in a presentation, a pose that reminds him in his muscles of his performance on board meetings and public presentations for the press. “Back to business. There’s one thing we didn’t do that I think we should.”

“What’s that?” Thor asks.

“We need a time-limit.” Tony gravely says, and, immediately, the entire mood of the room plummets to levels below the ground. It’s like being choked by something invisible, that comes out of the dark like a monster in the closed and grabs you by the throat when you least expect. “I know it’s not the best thing – in fact, it might be the worst thing about this entire mess, but we have to know how long we’ve got. We can’t push this until one of us falls, because then it’ll be too late.”

“W— How do you expect us to get that information?”

“Just a rough estimate. You must have one, don’t you?” Tony motions to Bruce, trying to seem as unassuming and respectful as he can, even if he can’t help but feel like he’s pushing Bruce against the wall on this. “You read some papers, you have some knowledge on this – more than I do, at least. You have any idea how long we’ve got, before it’s… Before we need to do something?”

Bruce looks down and shakes his head, his gaze lost to somewhere far beyond anything they can see, a sickly shine to his forehead as if he’s starting to sweat from the stress. He runs his hand through his short, greying hair – takes off his glasses, rubs at his eyes with his knuckles. He looks like he’s in pain.

“Based on the papers I could find… It’s not precise, no one was considering this might happen – the closest thing we have to this kind of data is the speed of black carbon absorption by the atmosphere and some theories on artificial global dimming of sunlight—”

“And?” Rhodey presses, and Bruce lets out a breath so deep that Tony fears it might hurt his ribs, and when he raises his head, Tony knows whatever he’s going to say next, it’s going to be very, very bad.

He simply has no idea how much.

“A week.” Bruce shrugs, but the movement is all panic. “Until more than fifty percent of the ashes all go up into the atmosphere. Maybe less. Maybe more. If it hasn’t rained, there’s pretty much nothing interfering on the air, so they just go up. Wind resistance changes from place to place, also altitude and climate, but in a worst-case scenario…”

“We have four days to fix this?” Rhodey asks, his voice thin with despair.

“Four days until we miss the window of opportunity to take out as much ash as we can from the air.” Bruce clarifies. “It’s not immediate, but everything else after that is going to be much harder to undo than if we did it now.”

“Let’s assume we’re gonna miss that window.” Tony proposes, because – well, that’s what’s gonna happen. Worst-case scenario. “How long after that?”

Bruce mulls over it for a few seconds. “I’d say… couple of months. Not many. Three at most.”

“Three months?” Rhodey parrots back, desolated.

“It’s what it’ll take to destroy most of surviving crops. Whatever’s left of the animal population after that will follow quickly.”

“Three months. Okay.” It’s not, it’s not okay, but Tony has a number now, and numbers he can work with. “So we have to get whatever we can in less than three months.”

“And we have to find him.” Thor reminds them, sourly. “Wherever he is, out there.”

“He’s a megalomaniac with an insanely strong weapon.” Tony comments. “Guys like him don’t like to stay hidden for long.”

“He finished his mission.” Bruce argues, as if that is enough reason for Thanos to fade away like a memory or an illusion. But Bruce doesn’t understand. Tony does.

“He spent years chasing his mission. Now he doesn’t have any.” Tony explains. “The next thing he’ll do is find another.”

“How can you tell?” Thor inquires.

Tony pauses. “Call it a hunch.”

(A hunch.)

It almost makes him want to laugh. Or cry. Or both.

“Let’s hope you are right, Stark, because creating a second Gauntlet only not to find the Stones after is…” Thor murmurs, sadly.

“Everything will work just fine, big guy.” Tony assures him with a weak pat on the arm. “Bring me that weapon of yours, would you? FRIDAY, gimme a scan on it.”

Thor carefully steps forward and lays his axe on top of the table, to the side of the mockup Gauntlet, with almost reverence in his movements. The axe is gigantic, the sort of weapon Tony imagines even Thor, as big as he is, would have trouble wielding in battle.

But it is… beautiful. Powerful. Tony can tell, just by looking at it. The handle is wood, pure wood, which is unexpected considering how heavy the head must be, but it’s long and sturdy, reliable. Tony kind of wants to run his hand across it, but he doesn’t. The wood is woven between what seems to be two halves of the head of the weapon, bringing them together, and the back and the blade are both made of some shiny, silver, absolutely impeccable material, with elegant ridges and lines, and just a faint marking of something designed across the metal, like Thor’s hammer used to have on its sides and around the edges.

Spells, Thor had said. Imbued into the metal.

These are different. He wonders what they could possibly mean.

“So, how did you get this? I thought you preferred using the hammer.” Tony asks, while he goes around the table for a better viewpoint, and runs his eyes along the sharp edge of the blade, taking in the details and looking for any anomaly.

Thor makes an awful, sad expression. “My hammer was destroyed.”

Tony and Rhodey both raise their heads in shock, mouths hanging in disbelief. Thor’s hammer, destroyed. What the hell.

“By what?”

“My sister.”

Tony rears back from his hunched position, reeling from the revelation. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

Does he mean Loki? Loki can shapeshift, right? But Thor has always referred to Loki as a he, and – Loki hadn’t been able to pick up the hammer, much less destroy it. What kind of being could possibly destroy something like that hammer? A weapon that most people couldn’t even lift?

Thor’s father, probably. Someone equally powerful. And now he has a sister, who is just as strong? Who destroyed his hammer?

“Neither did I.” Thor admits, and his voice is so sincere it doesn’t even occur to Tony to think he might be lying. “My father kept many secrets. The existence of my sister and her location was one of those secrets. When they were revealed, the destruction caused by them cost me greatly – far more than my hammer.”

His hammer. His eye, too. His different appearance. Oh – his people. Asgard. Oh God – was his sister working with Thanos? Like Loki had? Loki had been controlled, according to Bruce, but Thor is saying his sister had been missing. Or hiding. Or at least, not in Asgard. Tony is curious to know what happened, but he can’t muster the courage to ask, because he doesn’t want to risk bringing up something he’ll regret, whether that something is Loki or the sister, or Asgard, or the hammer, or all of those things, and Tony is worried, but he also can’t worry about this right now.

What could he possibly do?

(He can bring them back.)

(The people Thanos slaughtered. He can bring them back.)

But right now, he has nothing he can offer. He still needs to find a way to do it.

“Both the axe and the hammer were made by the same person? The guy who made the Gauntlet?” Tony inquires, getting back on track – not very smoothly, but Thor doesn’t seem to mind it.

“Not sure if the same person, but the same forge.” Thor clarifies. “Nidavellir is the mightiest forge in the universe. The Dwarves were experts in both metalwork and spells – their knowledge, combined with the power of the star that fuels the forge, creates the strongest weapons ever known.”

“I assume you don’t know where they get their metal from?”

“No one does. Nidavellir is surrounded by asteroids and other rocks of unknown sources – perhaps Uru is found in one of them.”

“That’s weird.” Bruce comments, scratching his neck. “We have found almost every element out there – if not all of them – and we know what kind of metal we can find in asteroids and meteorites. We could find everything here just fine, or we could make it. What sort of metal could it be?”

“How do they use the power of the star? They expose the metal to it? What kind of star is it?” Rhodey probs for answers.

“The star is surrounded by a circular structure meant to harness its power.” Thor explains, making a spherical shape with his hands in an explanatory gesture. “When the door to the structure is open, the beams that escape through it light up the forge and melt the metal.”

Bruce blinks owlishly, and then chokes out:

“A Dyson Sphere.”, he steps closer, and his voice is full of shock and awe. “You’re talking about a Dyson Sphere. A way to capture and use all the energy a star generates.”

“I do not know the name you use, but yes, it sounds like the structure surrounding the star.” Thor affirms. “Stars are dangerous to approach, since they pull all objects who dare to come close into their cores. The structure is circular, and it surrounds it completely, so it stops the pull of the star from causing damage to whatever is outside. Since all power is enclosed, when you open it, it beams light into the forge, lighting it up.”

“A Dyson Sphere. They actually made it.” Bruce lets out a baffled laugh. “Oh, this is beyond everything I imagined.”

Sure, sounds amazing, but Tony has to admit he’s not quite sharing Bruce’s excitement right now. He is much more focused on another bit of information Thor has provided. “They use radiation on metal.” He mumbles to himself, his foot tapping insistently on the floor, anxious energy flowing through him in an unstoppable wave, the same jittery feeling he always gets when he’s right at the cusp of figuring out the answer to a puzzle, but he’s not there yet. “They’re transforming it into something else. It’s artificial.”

“Not necessarily for the radiation.” Bruce suggests. “Maybe just the heat.”

“You can find heat much easier in much less hostile places.” Tony shakes his head. “Gotta be something special. I’m saying radiation.”

“They use the beams of the star to melt the metal.” Thor provides, with a slightly confused expression in his face, as if he can’t understand why they’re so insistent on arguing about this.

Bruce makes an exasperated you see? gesture with his hands, pressing his lips together in a bad parody of a contrite smile.

“It’s two for the price of one, so what.” Tony insists, not ready to let this bone go just yet. He feels like this might actually be a line of logic that’s important to pursue.

Bruce exhales a little too forcibly, as if he’s frustrated with Tony’s insistence, but also knows he can’t discard the possibility because they can’t be sure it’s not a viable explanation. Tony doesn’t know why he’s so adamant about this, to be honest – but heat doesn’t make any sense.

Or rather, it does, but it’s not the entire picture.

“Stars are very dangerous things to live close to.” Tony arguments, emphasizing his argument with small taps at the top of the table with the side of his hand, like he’s slicing a cake or something – but the movement grounds him, forces attention on his words. “It’s not something you would do unless you need something very specific from that star. Ultraviolet travels fine for medium distances. Why would they be so close?

Bruce bites his lip with just the corner of his teeth, a nervous tick Tony hasn’t seen him do in years, like he’s chewing on the skin unconsciously because of his anxiety. He looks away, thinking, wringing his hands together in a familiar gesture, and after a beat, he sighs and gives Tony a look that speaks of fearful, but understanding agreement, and he whispers:

“You know that if it’s changing the metal from one element to another, it’s Gamma Rays, right? Ionizing radiation.”

“I know.” Tony says, not allowing anything but the utmost confidence bleed into his voice. “And that’s why I’m gonna help you figure out how to do it. No one can do it better than you.”

Bruce looks at Tony, and Tony actually feels a pang of something that almost feels like nostalgia, a soft, almost bittersweet sensation blooming like a shy flower inside his chest, old, frazzled memories resurfacing at the corners of his head like old photographs, blurred at the edges, but still carrying weight and meaning to them anyway.

It reminds him of the day they met. The Helicarrier, the lab. The Tesseract. Bruce’s algorithm to track the Gamma radiation of the cube had been a work of art, his knowledge of the interactions of the particles and molecules precise and familiar, the confidence only an expert in their field can exude, with all the care and thoughtfulness someone who truly loves their field can have. As much as Bruce would hesitate to work with, or even speak of Gamma radiation back then – and to some extent, even now –, the… familiarity, it’s the only work Tony can think of, the deep knowledge and the mastery Bruce has on the subject it’s incredible. Like Thor said, seven PhDs. Tony may have some too, but he’s not arrogant about it – unless to those who deserve it. Bruce doesn’t. Bruce’s intelligence and straightforwardness are just refreshing and amazing to watch, and even though the subject is something that makes him uncomfortable—

Tony knows that with the right push, all that hesitation will fly out straight out of the window and Bruce is going to be pure and unfiltered science, and that’s the best thing.

Tony trusts him. Tony trusts him with this, with Gamma radiation, with all of it – even if Bruce won’t believe him right now.

But it’s okay.

Tony doesn’t back down.

Bruce stares and stares, like he did to Rhodey, like he’s trying to find the lie; and Tony gives him a tight, but sincere smile, big and wide, so intentionally mischievous he can feel the way it stretches his cheeks and it squints his eyes a bit, and he pretends he doesn’t know he looks like a bad influence or a hazard to Bruce’s health.

Bruce sighs, but nods firmly, almost like he’s giving himself a pep talk inside his mind, and pushes the glasses back onto position in his face and goes forth to Thor’s weapon – and it’s so good to have him back.

“FRIDAY, is the axe emitting radiation?” Bruce inquires, staring at the weapon on the table with a clinical look.

“None that I can measure, Doctor.” FRIDAY replies.

“So it’s stable. Even after getting blasted with the power of a star.”

Tony clicks his teeth together in quick, minuscule movements, the rhythm a soft distraction he can redirect his anxiety to while he thinks. “What would be strong enough?”

“Could be an alloy.” Rhodey shrugs, throwing the suggestion forward as if he’s just spitballing it. “If it’s used to melt the metal, it probably has to do with whatever they’re putting in it when molding, right?”

“Possibly.” Bruce agrees. “Most metals don’t have stable isotopes that allow them to be useful after being blasted with radiation. Not without safety equipment, at least. Much less to make a weapon to hold with your hands.”

“Run a list of all stable isotopes of artificially produced metals, known alloys, and half-lives.” Tony orders FRIDAY, and she doesn’t even have time to confirm the request before Bruce adds:

“That still wouldn’t be enough.” He points out, his mind firing a thousand miles per hour now, his brain kicking in on the familiar rush of following the clues of the problem at hand to guide him through his thoughts. “Solar radiation is incredibly powerful – we don’t have that sort of power on Earth. A society that is powerful enough to build a structure to use power directly from their star is already light-years ahead of us. Even if we know what kind of material to use, we don’t have any place we could make it.”

“If Thor can travel to the forge, we don’t need to build a welding structure – we use the one that’s already there.” Tony counters. “We just need to figure out what to use.”

“I have held the sphere open once, I can do it again.” Thor affirms, with inspiring confidence.

“We’ll probably have to move large quantities of metal, right?” Rhodey asks.

“The Benatar.” Tony reminds them, raising his eyebrows, and then turns to Thor. “It can cut through shortcuts across space, or something like that. Nebula did the same thing when she brought us back. Would you be able to guide them to the forge if we needed to?”

“Yes.” Thor nods.

“Then that’s it!”

“I’m more concerned to what’s gonna happen to it after we add the Stones. If we get them.” Bruce crosses his arms, in a posture that’s half defensive, but half thoughtful. “They emit gamma radiation, that we know. Even if the metal is stable, exposure to the radiation from the Stones could imbalance it. Maybe that’s why the Gauntlet was destroyed in the first place.”

“We only need it to work once.”

“The problem is that we won’t know it works until it does. Or it doesn’t.” Bruce shrugs helplessly, and slaps his hands on his thighs in an awkward, frustrated gesture. “All we have is the math. We don’t actually have the Stones here to check if the Gauntlet is going to hold them correctly or not.”

“My math is always right.”

“It’s not your math I don’t trust, Tony. I don’t trust the Stones.”

“Boss, if I may.” FRIDAY cheerfully interrupts, a bit more insistently than Tony expected of her.

Oh God, please, let the Benatar not be broken. “What you got for me, dear?”

But it’s not about the ship. FRIDAY brings up a projection of Tony’s armor, a schematic of how it looked before the battle, but with pointers and descriptions of every place it had taken a hit, according to the report she could read directly from the nanites.

“The Mark L armor seems to have considerable resistance to the direct attack of the Infinity Stones, according to the footage, which includes it in the category of viable options, even if it’s base components are not artificially produced.”

Tony stops for a second, and realizes – it’s true. The nanites are reinforced, yes, but the base of the armor hasn’t changed. And it worked.

“Add the gold-titanium alloy to the list, just in case.” Tony requests, a tiny spark of hope flaring inside him without his permission. “I’m gonna trust you on this one, baby girl.”

“Thank you very much. One more thing, Boss.”

“For you, anything.” Tony says, and Rhodey rolls his eyes with such force it’s a wonder it doesn’t hurt him, and he says Tony is the dramatic one, the hypocrite.

“There is one element already known to withstand the power of an Infinity Stone, according to my records.”

The words hit them like a slap in the face – so suddenly that both Bruce and Rhodey jump in their places, and Tony gasps loudly enough that it nearly drowns the soft what that escapes Thor’s lips.

“There is?” Tony asks hysterically, eyes wide and mouth open. FRIDAY doesn’t reply immediately, but a new projection comes up beside the one of Tony’s armor, quick and bright, and oh—

“The composition of Vision’s physical form consisted in a structure made of Helen Cho’s artificially created neutral cells and a substantial amount of—"

Vibranium.” Bruce and Tony speak at the same time, completely uncaring if they are interrupting FRIDAY’s report. Tony’s heart is beating loud and fast, his breath short, a rush of heat and adrenaline pumping into his bloodstream like some dam inside him has been broken open suddenly, anxiety spiking up in dangerous levels inside his brain.

Oh, holy fuck. Vibranium.

“I have registers of multiple uses of the Mind Stone without any visible collapsing or damage from it in Vision’s physical constitution. I believe it is the most reliable option to pursue for an experiment.” FRIDAY reports, and Tony feels like she’s punching the air out of him with every word.

“Okay.” He babbles, running his hands through his hair in clumsy gestures. “We might have an option for our Gauntlet. Okay. Okay, Okay.”

“It’s strong enough to hold one, but is it strong enough to hold all six of them? At once?” Bruce asks, his tone verging on desperation – of fear or of hope, Tony can’t say. There’s too much in his words and his eyes for him to safely tell the difference. Maybe it’s both.

Tony has no idea. He doesn’t even know what exactly is it that he’s feeling right now.

Vibranium. Christ, this has – it’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it? It has to be a coincidence, but at the same time – it’s too perfect. It’s almost cruel.

“Probably not.” Tony concedes, but the math in his head is having difficulties to make itself clear, since his thoughts and feelings are jumping about madly like monkeys in a barrel, the rush of adrenaline still not gone. “But having a base element is a good starting point. Also Vision was not pure Vibranium. Dr. Cho’s cells and the electricity of the cradle and Thor’s hammer – the entire thing is what put Vision together.”

“Also a huge amount of energy.” Bruce adds.

“But one beam of a star would be more than enough to power thousands of them – or a really big one—” Tony trails off, not because he stops thinking, but his mouth becomes incapable of following the speed at which his mind fires, “FRIDAY, my dear, where are Nebula and the Care Bear?”

“They seem to be attempting to fix some problem with the Benatar ship, Boss. They are still on the premises.” FRIDAY helpfully replies.

“Ask them to come back down.”

“Wait – they were going to Wakanda – we need them to go, Tony. Tell them—” Bruce flails, erratically.

“To bring back Vibranium? You really think the Wakandans are just gonna let us waltz in and grab their stuff?”

“They might be persuaded since the world is dying—”

“And we need Natasha to find the Wakandan Queen, or else we won’t even make past the front door. If we’re gonna use Vibranium, we’re gonna need a lot – if we can fix the Benatar, Nebula and Rocket can help Thor transport it to the forge of Nida-whatever and we have our Gauntlet.” Tony arguments, and Bruce’s mouth shuts down with a quick movement, and he stops walking towards Tony mid-step.

“How much Vibranium do you want?”

“As much as the Queen is willing to give. I just hope it’s a lot.” Tony gestures exasperatedly with his arms open, almost shrugging when he raises his shoulders defensively in such a quick move. “I know they’re not fans of outsiders, much less someone like me, but if we have Natasha and Rogers backing us up, this might go better than if it’s just two aliens, one of which is an overgrown Furby, and us begging for scraps through the phone.”

“Why do you think that?” Bruce asks. “That they’ll respond better if Natasha calls?”

“Why would they take the fight to Wakanda if the Wakandans didn’t trust them?”

Bruce stops. See? Tony has a point.

“This is gonna work, Bruce.” Tony assures him.

Bruce exhales a nervous breath, jittery anxiety rattling his bones, eyes jumping from place to place because his brain can’t seem to calm down now it has been given a new theory to work with. “Do we have any Vibranium on hand? We have to run tests. We can’t sit here while we wait for Natasha to give us a call.”

Tony nods, and says loudy, directing the instructions to FRIDAY, “Send an alert to Natasha and tell her to speed up her search of T’Challa’s sister. We might have a breakthrough with the Gauntlet here, we need a reply as soon as possible.”

“I’ve sent a message through the communicators, Boss. Agent Romanov, Agent Barton, and Captain Rogers seem to be arriving at the location of the Sanctum, and will return the call as soon as more information is provided.” FRIDAY helpfully says, and Tony is about to finally let out a breath and let loose the immeasurable tension in his shoulders, to relax a little, when all of a sudden, FRIDAY keeps going and says:

“I should remind you that Captain Rogers’ shield is stored in the vault, Boss.” She happily informs, and Tony’s body locks up so tightly he almost pulls a muscle. “If you are in immediate need of Vibranium, it’s possible to access it.”

(Oh, no. Oh, no, FRIDAY.)

Crap, why are his bots so helpful all the time?! Not helpful!

He can feel the weight of the gazes that suddenly turn to him, slowly and menacing.

“You have his shield?” Bruce asks, innocuous enough – but the answer is not innocuous at all, and Tony doesn’t know what to say.

Oh, no, no, no. Tony has no time for this.

“Why do you have his shield?” Rhodey stands up, chin turned up and eyes squinting, the same face he always makes when he knows Tony has done some bullshit and the truth will have to be dragged out of him. “I thought it was missing after Leipzig.”

“Yeah, about that…” Tony says, awkwardly, but then, he can’t follow through. What would he say? What could he possibly say?

(Rhodey doesn’t know.)

(Nobody does.)

“W — What happened in Leipzig?” Bruce asks, eyes jumping from Tony to Rhodey in quick, jerky movements, unease visible in the tense posture of his body and the rigid positioning of his hands.

“Nothing, is no big deal."

“He never explained why he didn’t have the shield with him when we fought Thanos.” Thor shuffles in place, shifting his weight from one foot to another, also sounding like he’s a little too helpless in this situation. Unlike Bruce, who looks alarmed, Thor just looks… confused, bemused almost, like something in Rogers’ silence saddens him. “I asked him, but he refused to speak. You were the one who had it?”

“I didn’t – Rogers dropped it, alright? I didn’t steal it.”

“Where did he drop it that you found it and the government didn’t?” Rhodey asks, and when Tony averts his gaze and bites his lip, he says again, “Tony.”, with the tone that is a dangerous indicator that Rhodey is getting far too close to a subject Tony does not want to touch right now.

It’s stupid, but he feels bereted. Chastised like a child, whose parent knows he is doing something wrong but refuses to accept, because he wants to pretend it didn’t happen and let it go. It’s something that it pains him to remember – it feels him with that hot, dreadful shame, the one that makes him feel like his face is melting from embarrassment or rage or both, and many other feelings that are far too complicated to put into words.

“Platypus, it’s not the best time—"

“You didn’t have to keep it, Tony, it’s not your responsibility to deal with his mistakes. You could have handed it over.”

“Mistakes?” Thor blinks, stepping closer so softly it’s almost imperceptible. “What did he do?”

“I would not hand it over to Ross—”

“Ross?” Bruce asks, voice rising in distress.

“It would have been in CIA custody, with Agent Ross, not General Ross—” Rhodey argues, but Tony doesn’t want to go down that rabbit hole.

“—And I didn’t have it when Ross first called me for a chit-chat, alright? Bringing it later would have just…” Tony gestures vaguely, exhaling harshly. “It would have been difficult to explain.”

Rhodey scoffs, in a soft, but totally unimpressed way, and lets out a humorless laugh and cocks his hip to the side, in an almost arrogant stance. “Well, you better find a simple way to explain it, because I don’t like the way this is going, Tony.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Bruce frowns, and steps forward in a way that Tony can’t ignore him unless he turns his back completely to Rhodey and him, to face the table where the Gauntlet is. “What happened, Tony? I think me and Thor have the right to know.”

Goddamnit.

And Bruce is right. They do. They do have the right to know. Tony asked them questions about what happened in the past three years, and it’s not fair of him to assume they wouldn’t ask about him. Or maybe not unfair, but naïve. But it’s not like he expected them to care. They have bigger concerns. And unlike Bruce’s issue with the Hulk, or Thor’s drastic changes and a new weapon, it’s not relevant now. It’s not relevant anymore. The part – the part where it would have mattered is gone, because it mattered when Thanos came, not now that he’s gone. It mattered when he attacked, and they should have been together, and they weren’t.

But now it’s past that. Now they’re – he doesn’t want to say together, because together implies it’s a choice, it’s comfortable and familiar and good, but it’s not, because they’re broken. As people, and as a team. They are… reunited, for the lack of a better word, and they have to stay that way. That’s the bottom line.

Tony hates himself, he hates that deep down, beneath all this resistance; he actually kind of wants to tell them. It feels like a masochistic impulse, to rip open old wounds he knows will sting and bleed – but also he… he wants to tell them and know if he’s wrong. If he’s right. He just wants to hear what they have to say. He knows it can backfire, and it probably will, because Bruce’s reaction as soon as Ross’ name is mentioned in any occasion is more than enough evidence to know how he’ll react, and Thor is a god and a prince and Tony knows that someone like him would never accept to be put under the control of a goddamn panel—

But at the same time, no one would ever understand the gutting need to feel reassured that they’re being accountable by their actions than Bruce. Than Hulk. God, maybe he’s the only one who could truly understand what Tony felt when Charlie Spencer’s mother cornered him at the basement of MIT, and told him I blame you. It’s awful of Tony, absolutely awful to think that way – but who else would understand that feeling if not Bruce? And Thor – Thor is destined to be a king, surely he could understand the need of reassuring the people and prioritizing them instead of his own power, right? Many kings don’t, historically speaking, but this is Thor. He can understand.

All Tony wants is to know if they would understand. Or if Thor is going to grab him by the throat again and tell him the world was in danger because of him. If Bruce will once again look at Tony like he lost his mind, and did something awful, and just hasn’t accepted it yet. Truth is – Tony is no longer confident he knows the people he once called his friends. He hasn’t seen Bruce and Thor in so long; and the others… well. The others and Tony are not friendly anymore.

And he’s not crazy to admit it out loud – but he thinks that if they turn this argument against him right here, right now, he won’t know what to do with himself.

Because that will mean that the fact they weren’t together was his fault.

Even with everything.

It would be his fault.

“We had an argument, alright—” Tony vaguely says, and Rhodey is not having any of it.

“An argument that destroyed an airport and nearly benched the Avengers.” Rhodey says, as if he’s annoyed at Tony for omitting information, but what does he care if Tony is not giving away all the nitty-gritty details? Shit, this is not the time to talk about this.

“That’s not – We handled it fine, Ross couldn’t bench us, there was just three of us.

“You know damn well he wanted to.”

“And he didn’t get it, so who got the last laugh?”

“Can you guys please make sense, I’m not sure if I’m liking the way this conversation is going so far.” Bruce pleads, a laugh that’s all desperation escaping his lips.

Tony takes in a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment to gather himself, and honestly, he’s thankful Rhodey lets him do it without interruption. When he opens his eyes, he dares to look at his best friend – and Rhodey looks back with those eyes, soft with concern, the dark color shining with a twinge of fearful worry that makes Tony’s heart ache with the sad realization he’s the one who put that there, the one making Rhodey worry.

It’s not… It’s not Rhodey’s fault. Tony’s issues, that is. It’s not his fault for pushing Tony – Tony knows he is a handful. And Rhodey is right to ask, it’s not like he has no reason to be concerned. But still.

“There was a document, proposed by the UN.” Tony tells them, voice as level and calm as he can, his eyes lowered to the floor, because for some reason, he doesn’t feel strong enough to look them in the face as he speaks. “That was designed to take us from the control of the US government and make us a response team managed by the UN, to stop or at least reduce the problems we were having with some countries.”

“What sort of problems?” Thor asks for clarification, also stepping closer, rapt attention to Tony’s tale.

“Damage.” Tony says, shrugging. “In infrastructure, and political standing, and civilian casualties. We had an accident in 2016, where… Wanda accidentally pushed a bomb away from a crowd, but it went into a building, and it hit people. Twenty-three people died, including seven Wakandans who had been there in a peacekeeping mission.”

When Tony stops speaking, there’s only silence filling the air, silence and dust, and Tony feels incredibly exposed for some reason, almost as if his chest is open in a wound, and anything could come too close and hit him in a very bad way. He’s honestly almost surprised by the feeling – the raw, unprotected sensation in his chest as fresh as it was years ago, when it shouldn’t be, because it’s been years; and the odd feeling that’s not quite shame, but also not comforting, that’s half regret and half reluctance, and all sorts of confusing.

“Then the King of Wakanda – Not T’Challa, his father – reached out and proposed the UN should be the ones handling which missions the Avengers were allowed to take, and where we would be allowed to go or not.”

“I don’t understand.” Thor admits, lowly, but kindly, prompting Tony to explain it in more detail.

“It was a domestic thing. The Avengers were not supposed to be in Lagos, technically.” Rhodey explains. “If it’s aliens, no one has a problem with us stepping in and helping, because we have specialized equipment. But Steve and the others were hunting down this… guy, a HYDRA agent, and they followed him all the way to Nigeria without the permission of our government or their government.”

“We also didn’t have permission to go to Sokovia when we found Strucker’s base.” Bruce says, but he doesn’t word it like a counter-argument – like the others would have. Rogers, probably. He says it like he knows it’s bad, but it’s done, and now all he can do is admit it and hope it wouldn’t blow up in their faces.

“And that’s why the people reacted the way they did when they saw the Iron Legion.” Tony reminds him, and Bruce gives a nod, in hesitant agreement.

“It makes sense.” Bruce concedes. “No one would want an American group to just cross borders without any explanation, and then… causing explosions and just leaving.”

Thank you.” Tony throws his hands in the air. “That was what I said!”

“You didn’t say that.” Rhodey points out, the little shit.

“It was heavily implied.” Tony childishly disputes. “What part of we need to be put in check does not imply that?”

“I don’t understand, what’s the problem with that? What does that have to do with this Ross?” Thor inquires.

“The problem was that Ross was the Secretary of State, which means he was the one we had to go through to get to the UN.”

Thor doesn’t get how important that information is, but Bruce does. Bruce is the one who stops and breathes in a sharp breath, and says, “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Tony says, if a little too aggressively. “And because of that, Rogers wouldn’t sign.”

“Because of this Ross? I am assuming he is not someone to trust.” Thor concludes.

“Ross was the one who…” Bruce falters. “He was the one trying to recreate the serum they used to create Captain America. Besides me. When it didn’t work, he chased me for it. Trying to get the Hulk.”

Thor makes a disgusted face, like the very notion of it is inconceivable to him, and he looks angry at the idea that someone would be chasing Bruce to get to the Hulk.

“Not just because—” Tony huffs, shaking his head and blinking slowly, trying to gather some composure before this goes way out of hand. This subject stresses him out. He’s incredibly stressed out. “He said it would be giving away our right to choose. The thing is – we shouldn’t have the right to choose if people are scared of what we’re gonna do if we go. Because that’s what was happening!”

“Your right to choose what, exactly?” Bruce asks.

“Where we would go, when we would go.” Tony explains, as plainly as he can. “Rogers fears they would have stopped us from getting to an emergency because of faulty judgment, thinking the local law enforcement could handle the danger when they couldn’t.”

“Sounds like a reasonable concern.” Thor frowns, but doesn’t elaborate on it.

“It’s like a military system.” Bruce deduces, looking at Rhodey for confirmation. “Right? It’s like being sent on missions based on what your superiors deem necessary, and not just because you want to go.”

“That’s it.” Rhodey agrees.

“Yeah, I can see where Steve would have a problem with that.”

“But he didn’t have a problem.” Tony says, and oh, here he goes, he’s getting anxious about it again, goddamnit. “That’s not what he had. What he had was his own agenda, and his own plan, and he-"

“Alright, I’m getting that you’re really upset about whatever Steve has done, aren’t you?”

“Upset? Me? No, I’m not upset. I don’t care. He made his choice. He chose to act the way the did. Not my problem.”

“Definitely upset.” Bruce murmurs to Thor, not nearly as silently as he thinks. “Is that why you weren’t together? When I fell down here, and Thanos was coming? Because of this Accords?”

(Together.)

“That—” Tony stutters, shifting his weight from one foot to another, skin prickly with discomfort, and he turns to the side in a weak effort to hide his face. “Mostly. Yeah. But what did you want me to do? To just ignore the complaints of 117 countries and follow Rogers to wherever the hell he went just because he told us to?”

“You had his shield. He had your phone.” Bruce points out – oh, no, they aren’t supposed to talk about that! “I imagine you guys could have sorted something out if you wanted to. You wouldn’t have kept those things if you thought the team was beyond repair, right?”

“He had your phone?” Rhodey drawls – and there it is, the problem he’d been trying to avoid, great.

“It’s not what you think.” Tony says, and he knows it only makes him sound more guilty, but he’s fairly sure he’s panicking a little so he has nothing better to offer.

“Tony.” Rhodey says, and his voice is so much worse than angry or disappointed; he sounds sad, and Tony hates when Rhodey sounds sad because of him. “Did you help them escape?”

“Natasha did.”

“From the Raft, yes. I know.” Rhodey insists. “But in Leipzig. Did you help them escape and then they just left you here to deal with Ross alone?”

Yes. Sort of?

No. Not exactly.

Tony’s not sure.

“I didn’t help them.” Tony says, because it feels like the truth. He’s not sure if it is, but it’s too late to think about it anyway. “I couldn’t.”

“Then why would you have a phone with Steve’s number on it?”

“He sent it to me.” Tony admits. “Said he’d come back if I needed.”

“And did you call?”

He almost did. He didn’t want to, but he almost did.

But he didn’t.

The reason why is far too complicated to explain. And he can’t explain, because Rhodey doesn’t know. No one does, but him, FRIDAY, and Vision. Well, him and FRIDAY, now. Tony thinks he would have, because he almost did – but at the same time, the birth of Mark L and Tony’s own plans to deal with alien threats for the past three years, the secrecy of his new projects and all the all-nighters he pulled whenever he could, without alerting Pepper… It all speaks of him not wanting to call, because he had to do this on his own, and he knew it.

“No.” He says, and that, at least, tastes like a truth on his tongue.

Rhodey looks at him for a beat too long—

“Boss, incoming call.” FRIDAY suddenly says, and they don’t even have time to process the interruption before the audio shifts and a new voice comes in through the speakers, a little too frazzled for the quality of the Compound’s sound equipment.

“Hey! You guys listenin’ down there?”

It’s Rocket. The sound of wind and weird static behind him is disconcerting.

“We’re listening.” Tony replies, honestly kind of grateful for the interruption, but worried about the weird noises being patched through the audio. “You are supposed to get back down here, Nebula too!”

“Yeah, had a little problem after we got the message!”

“What’s wrong?” Rhodey asks, alert.

“We found the problem with the ship!” Rocket says, but he doesn’t sound happy about it – he sounds annoyed. Tony thinks this might just be his default state, but still, he can’t help to interpret it as a bad sign. “Turns out wasn’t the engine – it was the moron inside the engine! And he says he knows you, iron guy!”

Before Tony can make any sense of what Rocket’s saying, Nebula’s voice, muffled by her distance, comes on, and she says nonchalantly:

“Should we kill him?’

“Hey, no!” A third voice exclaims, hysteric with concern. “There’s no need for that! No killing!”

Tony knows that voice.

“Who’s that?” Rhodey’s face scrunches in confusion, as he looks at them for answers.

“Is that—”

“Mr. Stark! Hi! Can you please—” The voice says, agitated, and very loud, as if they’re afraid they might not be heard. Which, considering Nebula is threatening murder, is an acceptable reaction. “I’m not – I don’t know if you remember me – this is Scott? Scott Lang? Ant-Man?”

Holy shit, it is.

“FRI, give me video.”

And there – oh Christ, there he is. Scott Lang.

Nebula is holding him at least two meters away with her electric batons, but it is Scott Lang, as jittery and awkward as Tony remembers him, fearful smile and wide eyes and all, hands raised in a surrender position.

Scott Lang.

Oh, God, he survived.

“I heard we were supposed to come in!” Lang explains himself, looking at the camera directly with a pleading gaze, as if he knows they are watching it. “Weren’t we? I thought we were! I saw the message Cap sent! I’m sorry I tried to destroy your ship! I was trying to help!”

“How do you help by destroying the ship!” Rocket screams, but no one pays him any mind.

“Should I kill him or not?” Nebula asks again, and though her gaze never leaves Lang, Tony knows the question is directed at him, and Tony startles back into action like he’s been electrocuted by Nebula’s batons himself.

“No! No, no killing!” Tony says, a bit too late, to be honest. “Bring him down with you. He’s alright.”

“Thank you!” Lang loudly replies, but flinches when Nebula moves, even if it’s just to store her batons away.

“Follow me.” Nebula says, all business, and Lang has no choice but to skittishly tag along as both Nebula and Rocket leave the view of the camera, walking towards the elevator, before FRIDAY cuts off the feed.

“So.” Rhodey exhales, shakily. “We have Ant-Man now.”

“That’s Ant-Man?” Bruce asks, and Tony is too… He doesn’t know, he’s too overwhelmed to reply – and that, he swears, is the only reason why he doesn’t completely quit when Thor, in a soft, almost too innocent voice, says:

“I thought he would be smaller.”

Notes:

It seems like we're getting somewhere! But are we? ;)

Next chapter should follow with the next bit for Bruce's part, maybe even a little bit of someone else's as well - but mostly, we're gonna have some more plot! And more nerdiness, so get ready! I'm very excited to add some more science to this magic mumbo-jumbo the MCU presented. It's really fun, to work out explanations for the things that never have been explained by canon. That's why you can't leave things hanging, kids - someone like me might be watching akjsdhkjasfh

On other news, I have an incredible announcement to make! Suspension of Belief, the Part I of this series, has hit 10k
very recently, and I am so, so grateful for it! Thank you very much to everyone who stayed around for this Part as well,
and hopefully, I will soon be able to say the same milestone has been achieved for this Part as well! Thank you, from the
bottom of my heart. The reason why I'm so excited to keep writing this its because you all have been supporting me and that's just amazing!

I'd like to take this opportunity to propose something. I am working on a gift of sorts, something I've been wanting
to do for a very long time and I'd like to share with you once it's done, and it's something I've had on my mind for a long time, but surprise, surprise - it's not a fic. It's something else ;)

Problem is: it's going to take a little while to get ready, so, I want to propose something. If you have any ideas for an extra fic that should be included in this series, let me know! As a gift for all of you for the milestone, I am considering adding a small fic, just a one-shot really, to expand upon some scenes or missing scenes of Part I or the chapters posted so far in this fic. Feel free to leave suggestions! I want to know what you guys would be interested in discussing more at length. In the next chapter of this fic, I plan to create a poll so everyone can vote on selected prompts - and I should make a short fic based on the winning prompt soon after the next chapter is out. Don't be shy about it! I really want to know what you guys would be more interested in reading. I have some ideas of my own, but I'd like to know your opinion, because this milestone has only been possible to achieve because of you!

Thank you all very much, friends! I'm very glad to have you all with me on this crazy journey! See you in the next one <3

Chapter 11: Chapter 11

Notes:

Let's string in some more canon content! - in case, you know, you thought I was joking when I said I'm making use of literally everything. We still have some unexplained issues to resolve! And for our emotional journey, this is Bruce, Part II. We're getting personal in this one, folks.

No one talks about the solo Hulk movie these days. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to break this vow of silence.

You probably haven't given this movie any thought in years. I wouldn't blame you for it, I'm not the biggest fan of it either; It's very early in the MCU and not nearly as strong as the other solo movies from the time, it heavily features Ross, which... yikes, most of us prefer Ruffalo's iteration to Norton's and so on. But I have one very particular issue with this movie, that has nothing to do with the content, and everything to do with some of its settings - and the implications of such setting. So, as much as I prefer to pretend the solo Hulk movie doesn't exist, it does, and I will acknowledge it for one reason: the opportunity it gives me, on a personal level.

Nudge your memory a little bit. Do you remember where Bruce was hiding in the first half of the movie? Rio de Janeiro, right?

You wanna take a guess where I grew up? Yeah.

More specifically, Bruce is hiding in Rocinha, which is the biggest favela in Brazil; and to the blessedly unaware, let me tell you what that means. If you've never been, as I'm sure none of the writers and producers of this movie had, it's very easy to miss one essential thing about them: it has its own set of rules. Like many other slums, those rules are not written, they are simply known, if you live in a place where they exist for long enough to learn them. Bruce is hiding in Rocinha for what seems to be a very long time, months at least, and trust me when I say this is more than enough time to understand that there are a few things you simply cannot do if you live inside a place like that. Much like any other place that is built on the necessity of the poor to have a place to call home, where survival meets ingenuity to show how exactly how far people are willing to go to create a community for themselves - people who live in these conditions don't take lightly to those who dare to trespass their borders. Especially, if those trespassers are armed.

I don't expect the movie to show the reality of it, because the reality is dangerous. It is, after all, just a movie. They would never put actors and famous people in a situation where they could actually get hurt; but once you craft a story that will use reality as an argument, and you use a place I am intimately familiar with in one of your films - I think I have the right to point out something very, very important that you missed: The Accords are built by governors, from a desire that foreigners should respect their sovereignty. Which, to anyone with no trust in governments, or that's used to being well-received rather than suspected, might sound shoddy and mistrustful. So let me tell you something about a special kind of sovereignty; the sovereignty built by people, and the means they are willing to use, to maintain it.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Scott Lang is a twitchy, fumbling mess, eyes wide in child-like wonder and innocence, messy hair and stubble and rumpled clothes, just like Tony remembers him. He sits with hands resting on his knees, right leg bouncing anxiously as he avoids their inquiring gazes by looking around the workshop with clear nervousness in his face, browns slightly furrowed and mouth twisted in a pensive expression.

He looks like he was caught stealing a candy bar from a 7-Eleven and now has no way out of the scolding of a lifetime.

It’s exactly what Tony had imagined he would be like, to be honest.

He doesn’t know much about Lang, he’ll admit, besides their brief interactions in Leipzig and inside the Raft – which is… troublesome –, and the repo the general news reports from Lang’s appeal trial. Reports only of course, because even though the Stark Industries Legal team backed up both Lang’s and Barton’s trials from the sidelines, Tony never actually went down there and met them during their standings. What good would it do? Even if Tony knows Lang would have definitely reacted better than Barton – or less aggressively, truthfully speaking –, Tony kept his distance, just in case. So they never interacted much. He doubted his presence would’ve been appreciated anyway; The legal team had done what it needed to do, and Lang had gotten his reduction of sentence, placed in house arrest, and everything had been fine.

That’s as far as Tony had been willing to go. That had been another thing where he knew better than to get too close.

But Lang seems like an okay guy. A pile of nerves, yes, but he’s smart. Tony has seen his resume – academic and criminal records both, and it’s quite impressive. Not to mention the whole Ant-Man thing, which is just crazy. He thinks Lang is mostly harmless if he’s on your side, so Tony is fine with him being here; And any nervousness Lang might be experiencing right now has nothing to do with him, just to be clear, but it probably has a lot to do with the way Rhodey, Rocket, and Nebula are staring down at him in a semi-circle of disapproval, almost creating a barrier between him and Tony, Bruce, and Thor.

Poor guy. Tony wouldn’t like to be him right now.

“What were you doing inside the ship’s engine?” Rhodey asks, in his Colonel voice, and it’s easy to see how Lang’s shoulders hunch in a scared movement before he raises his eyes.

“Sorry, I kind of panicked. I saw the ship and, uh—” Lang stutters, raising his hands in a defensive gesture and looking quickly between Nebula and Rocket, which is admittedly difficult, considering the height difference. “I thought they were aliens.”

“They are.” Tony concedes, and ignores the nasty look Rocket throws him.

“Enemy aliens. Sorry.” Lang explains. “I saw the attack on TV a few days ago. I was afraid they had come back and I just… thought it would be best not taking a chance.”

“Honest mistake.” Tony tries to abate the aura of mistrust floating in the air by making his voice extra irreverent, placing a hand on Rhodey’s shoulder in a silent request for him to ease off a little. “Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m fine, I’m fine.” Lang replies, in a way that does not reassure Tony that he’s fine at all. “I came here because… Because…”

“Did someone you know—?” Tony asks somberly. “You have a daughter.”

“Cassie’s okay.” Lang assures, if a little frantically; but hearing his daughter is fine is a relief, in so many ways. “So is Maggie, but Paxton…”

“Sorry, who?”

“My ex-wife. And her husband.” Lang gestures with his head, a tilted nod to accompany the pointed tone with which he explains. “She’s okay, but she said… She said he never came home from work. We don’t know what happened.”

“You think he…?”

“I don’t know.” Lang shakes his head robotically, his gaze lost. “Maybe? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what to think.”

“And what are you doing here?” Rhodey presses, a little annoyed, apparently tired of being sidelined when he still very obviously still isn’t satisfied with Lang’s answers. “Why would you come all this way?”

Tony is a little surprised with the hint of mistrust he can hear in Rhodey’s voice. He doesn’t think Lang can tell, or anyone else, because no one else knows the nuances of Rhodey’s authoritarian posture and his slight shifts of strict tone, but Tony can, and the pointed edge of his voice is unexpected.

“I saw Cap’s message this morning. Tried to get into a computer at the store close to my house to see what was going on, because all the lights went out in my apartment last night, and the message was playing on repeat right across the room. I know he said SHIELD agents should come in, but I thought…” Lang trails off, looking lost. “I thought I could help, somehow. I’m not really sure what’s going on, but I don’t think it’d be right if I didn’t call in and let you guys know I’m here.”

“What about your daughter?” Tony presses.

“She’s with Maggie, she’s safe.”

“Do they have energy where they’re at? Food, water?” Bruce interrupts, stepping forward anxiously to make himself more noticeable.

“Yes, yes, I made sure of it before I left.” Lang affirms, but his expression his has that somber, sad pull, worry deeply etched on his forehead and brows. “But… I don’t know where Hope is. Or Hank.”

Tony raises an eyebrow, taken aback. “Hank Pym?”

“And his daughter, Hope Van Dyne. I don’t—” Lang stutters. “I can’t find them. Please, if you guys know anything—”

“FRIDAY will look for them, okay? She’s already looking for some people for is, I’ll add Pym and her to the list.”

“Please. Thank you.” Lang exhales, long and suffering, eyes closing in a brief moment as a rush of relief visibly runs through him like a flood, his shoulders dropping and hands wringing the knees of his jeans, fingers bony and pale. “Did they all make it? The team?”

That same heavy, suffocating grief trickles in again, terribly familiar now, and it’s impossible to resist the impulse to avert their gazes to the floor as they are yet again forced to relive the reality of the situation they’re in, that doesn’t get any easier each time they have to talk about it out loud.

“Vision, Sam, and Wanda. King T’Challa, too.” Rhodey tells Lang, all posturing or hints of authority completely gone, voice carried only with loss and dread. “They didn’t make it.”

“And Barnes.” Tony amends, despite himself, arms crossing in front of him almost immediately as the words leave his lips. He doesn’t know why, but he feels very vulnerable saying it.

“Oh, God.” Lang’s mouth opens and closes a few times, his eyes wild, struggling to find the words until he finally settles on a muted, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing we could do.” Tony admits, and it cuts through his throat like he’s swallowing glass, the bitterness of it, and before it has any chance of staining his tongue with its acid, horrid taste, he swallows it down by sheer force of will and says, with all the strength he can muster, “We’re getting them back.”

“Getting them back? What do you mean – how?

“We’re gonna find Thanos, steal the Stones back, and snap our fingers. Bring them back.”

“Can we do that?” Lang asks, shocked and earnest in equal measure.

“We have to.” Rocket says, sourly. “We have no choice.”

“It’s the dust, isn’t it?” Lang, surprisingly, says, with a nearly unsettling amount of insight. They can’t help but stare at him with surprise and suspicion and admiration, all jumbled together, caught off guard by his so accurate guess of the actual problem – that no one has told him about yet. “Cassie has been coughing for two days straight now. She says she can’t breathe. I just… put two and two together.”

(Huh.)

(Was not expecting that.)

“Yeah.” Tony says, almost emotionlessly with how shocked he is. “You still up to help?”

“More than ever.” Lang assures them, jittery. “What can I do?”

“Depends.” Tony raises his eyebrows. “You wanna be brain or brawn?”

Lang blinks. “What?”

“We have teams of SHIELD agents out there right now trying to scout safehouses and calm survivors. There’s a lot of rubble, because of accidents. A guy like you, that can go big like a building, could help clear the debris and open passage wherever they may need.”

“Ah, it’s not… A good idea, it doesn’t last long, and it’s pretty exhausting.” Lang admits, almost sadly.

“What about when you’re little? Any help you can give with that?”

“I can send the ants beneath the rubble to look for anyone who might have been trapped beneath the fall. Lowers the risk of injuring agents by sending them into the debris.”

“You can send ants?” Rhodey asks, disbelieving.

“The whole Ant-Man thing is a little more literal than you think.” Lang cryptically says.

“So you turn into ants?” Nebula inquires.

“No.” Lang exclaims, but reigns himself in before explaining, “The suit doesn’t just allow me to change sizes, it can let me talk to the ants too. Well, not talk, they don’t… talk… exactly… But they understand me! That’s the point. I can direct them to do certain things. That’s how I got here – Anthony flew me here.”

“Anthony?”

“The… ant.”

The guy has an ant named Anthony.

Ant-hony.

Oh, God.

“I’m just saying they can help.” Lang lamely finishes, trying to make his explanation sound a little less nonsensical than it is. Luckily for him, they’ve seen weirder – at least, that’s what Tony tells himself, when a little voice inside his brain asks him of taking Lang with them in this ride is really necessary, and his survival instincts screech hysterically to remind him that yes, he is.

“Wonderful. Get on that, chop-chop.” Tony presses, almost dismissively, ready to turn his back to Lang and let Rhodey handle his designing into one of the recon teams downstairs, to turn his attention back to the board, but before he can, Lang’s sudden movement stops him.

“Wait, Mr. Stark, hold on! Please!” Lang says loudly, getting up from his seat in a jolt. “I want brains too. I mean – I wanna help with whatever you need to find this guy and reverse this, too. I’d be happy to help with the agents, sure—"

“Take a breath, Lang.”

“— But I can’t sit here and not help when it sounds like you guys are doing this very dangerous thing all on your own.” Lang heaves out a harsh exhale, the words coming out of his mouth like they’re running a hundred miles an hour, the frantic gleam in his eyes, the bags under them, the pale tone of his skin doing nothing to diminish the fervent sentiment in his voice, the assured tone of his message. “Alright? I know, I know we’ve had your differences, and I’m so sorry, but I really want to do everything I can to help, because I can’t let my baby girl go sick while I watch, okay? I have to do something about it, if I can help, I wanna help.”

And Tony believes him. He can’t not believe him, even if he had any problems with Lang – which he doesn’t. Lang’s eyes are wide with sincerity, completely bare in their intentions and holding no secret intentions back, just his pure, unleashed desire to help and eager drive to do good. Irrationally, it almost makes Tony feel a little sad. A little sad, because he doesn’t know what it’s like to feel this intensely hopeful anymore, and Lang might be the only one among them who is still capable of it… But maybe that’s what they need. Maybe just one person is enough. One that is just as motivated, but not as desperate, to push them forward when all becomes too much.

Maybe they need Scott Lang in their team.

“We’re fine, Lang, don’t worry. No hard feelings.” Tony says, a little mollified by Lang’s desperation, but with complete honesty. “You can help.”

“Yeah, okay.” Lang breathes out a winded sigh, relieved. “Thank you.”

“And stop calling me Mr. Stark. It’s Tony.”

“Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Tony.” Lang repeats, and then, makes a weird, unnatural pause. “I have a question, though.”

Tony tilts his head and arches an eyebrow, urging him on.

“I know who Thanos is.” Lang drawls, hesitantly. “But… what are these Stones, exactly?”

 

Okay.

Turns out, Lang is also kind of an idiot.

But they work with what they’ve got.

 

As soon as the connection between Vision’s “shiny yellow forehead gem” and the other Infinity Stones is established, Lang is actually quite quick on the get-up. He balks at the sight of their info board, which, yeah, appropriate reaction; But his eyes don’t betray any fear of regret of his decision of coming out to help – if anything, Lang is curious, detail-oriented, and his eyes skim through the links between one information to another with surprising speed, cataloging the evidence in his own mind in a way that will help him navigate through it, even if differently than they will.

Lang has other types of association to make than the rest of them do. He wasn’t there – but he admits remembering most of the public information about 2012 and 2015 quite well, the news on the attacks of New York and Sokovia broadly spread thanks to TV and paper, as well as Natasha’s public hearing after the fall of SHIELD in late 2014. A few things he has to be brought to speed on, much like Nebula and Rocket had, but it’s surprisingly easy, considering how little he questions the existence of magic crystals with the power to level the universe and how well he already knows the Avengers, from the news over the years and… everything else. All in all, he catches up quick and seems to understand why they are bringing in so much information to the table, and promises to do what he can to help them skim through it as fast as possible.

Lang is an engineer. Tony would never refuse his help, despite the small differences they’ve had in the past.

Lang is nothing like Hank Pym. That, on its own, it’s quite a relief to his heart.

After that, an introduction is just a mere formality, but Tony is a public speaker and a host through and through, and thinks it’s for the best if he reassures Lang that Nebula will not clonk him at the back of the head if he dares to turn his back at her. Tony makes no show of pretending he doesn’t know who Lang is this time – he’s pretty sure that ship has sailed a long time ago anyway –, and when he explains how Nebula and Rocket came to be in their small group of survivors, Lang, being the eager puppy that he is, doesn’t question their participation at all and just takes it all in stride, which is a relief in its own regard. Tony can see he has questions beyond the mere recollection of their stories, probably because Nebula is blue and Rocket is a raccoon, but Lang proves himself yet again a very efficient study and doesn’t ask, keeping himself focused on the task at hand.

Lang knows Rhodey already, sort of. That’s easy – though it doesn’t make Lang any less terrified of Rhodey in any way, and Tony kind of lets him fret about that a little bit, because it’s mostly harmless, and Rhodey will appreciate it, even if he doesn’t admit it. The other two, though; Tony is not sure who Lang is more excited to meet: Thor, the literal Norse god, or Bruce, the legendary scientist with seven PhDs.

It would be kind of amusing – it is, if Tony is honest, because Lang is not a biochemist and Bruce is not skilled on talking to strangers, which really doesn’t help the situation at all, but even so, something inside him still holds a little twinge of an evil humor, and enjoys, half proudly, half mischievously, how Bruce struggles not to flush out of embarrassment as Lang stares wide-eyed at him.

“So, how did you guys meet?” says Bruce, with all the awkwardness of someone who doesn’t know how to maintain small talk with someone who clearly admires him, unintentionally making it sound like a distant relative who’s fishing for the story of how Tony and Lang got eloped somehow.

Lang stutters, smile turning into a confused, almost ashamed expression, “I helped Cap with… uh, a… thing? Not sure how to call it now, it’s actually kind of embarrassing—”

“The Accords.” Rhodey intervenes, fearing Lang might drag himself down a hole trying to explain how exactly he came to be associated with the Avengers; which is a fair concern, with how unsure Lang seems to be with the answer. “Ant-Guy was on Cap’s side against the Accords, so he was in Leipzig too, when the fight broke.”

Lang, for a moment, looks surprised, and he quickly looks between them before settling his eyes on Bruce again. “Oh, so you know about that, okay. I thought… with you being gone and all of that… Nevermind.”

“I don’t actually, but I’m getting bits and pieces here and there.” Bruce says like it’s an admittance, but the way his eyes turn sharp to Tony and Rhodey, it’s clear it’s well-aimed poke at them, disguised as innocence.

Tony doesn’t give him any berth.

He doesn’t have the patience, nor the luxury, to dwell on it now. It’s done.

“Get bits pieces some other time, we have an issue to solve.” He says, very clearly shutting down the subject, bringing a projection of the six Infinity Stones close with a flick of his wrist, to redirect their attention to other matters. “Now. While we wait for a reply from the Wakandan Queen on the Vibranium issue, we need to think about the Stones. What they do, what they might be made of, and how can we steal them from him.”

Bruce looks at Tony like he’s frustrated, like he’s pitying him, and like he’s worried, all at once, all of it woven in the lines on his forehead and the slight downward tilt of the corner of his lips, but ultimately, he exhales and averts his gaze, shifting into a problem-solving mindset easily, the easing into the science all too easy from years of habit ingrained into his soul.

Thor seems incredibly divided by their interaction, not sure if he should intervene or let them be, but in the end, he doesn’t say a word.

“Bring back the board, please, FRIDAY.” Bruce asks, with all the politeness he reserves for his more serious, objective persona. “Thank you. Scott, how familiar are you with… chemistry, or astrophysics?”

“Huh, not a lot?” Lang admits. “I can handle myself on quantum mechanics, but that’s pretty much it.”

Rhodey frowns, not angry, but a little surprised. “I thought that wasn’t your field.”

“Yeah, but Hank… the Ant-Man suit works based on a kind of particle that messes with quantum physics. The forces between and inside atoms. I thought it would be best to learn about it when I started using it, just in case.”

“So you’re not a total idiot.” Rocket mumbles, and Lang actually looks a little offended, pouting and frowning lightly.

“What kind of particle is that?” Bruce inquires, eyes wide with shock.

“Pym Particles.” Lang clarifies. “A little secret Hank Pym has been sitting on for a few decades.”

“First dark energy and now this.” Bruce looks up in exasperation and sighs, like he’s completely exhausted. “I miss the days I understood what was happening with science.”

“If you don’t understand, then the rest of us have no hope, Doc.” Lang laughs, breathlessly, and he sounds so much like he has a crush that they just look at him like he’s lost his mind kind of on instinct, and Lang jumps in his seat and gives Bruce a tight smile, bashful. “Sorry.”

Tony has to fight very hard to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Lang is so weird. Really, why did Pym choose him? Not that he’s a bad guy, far from it, but Pym and Lang, working together… Tony is having a hard time wrapping his head around that one.

“Still, might be good to have a fresh pair of eyes on the problem.” Tony offers anyway, as a peace offering, to steer Lang away from the awkwardness of his earnest attempts to express his admiration for Bruce and put him back on track. “You might see something we’re missing.”

“I’ll try my best.” Lang says, with incredible sincerity. Deeming this his opportunity, he stands, and shuffles with difficulty past Nebula and Rhodey, who have not backed off from their places; and with some adjustment, escapes to a more favorable position in front of the brainstorming board. “So what are we looking at?”

(Christ. Isn’t that the question?)

They all stare at the board.

Really, what are they looking at?

“If we get a Gauntlet, the next step is to figure out what to do about Thanos and the Stones.” Tony proposes, logically. “We have to find him, to immobilize him, get the Stones, and snap. Considering we don’t know where he is yet, we have to focus on the next part: stopping him, and stealing his Gauntlet.”

“How are you sure he still has them?” Lang asks, curiously, but the question arrives at Tony’s brain like it’s jumbled, making no sense.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Lang makes a face that doesn’t explain anything at all, and at Tony’s lack of response, he poses his question in other words: “How can you be sure he didn’t destroy them?”

“He wouldn’t.” Tony very emphatically replies.

“But what if he did—”

“He wouldn’t, no one would destroy their biggest weapon and their only chance to protect themselves after challenging the entire universe to a deathmatch. He can’t.”

No.

That’s – no. No way. He’s not gonna argue on this.

Tony knows, at least at a certain level, that Lang’s question is reasonable. More than reasonable. It’s, actually, the right question. How do they know he still has the Stones? The truth is that they don’t. They don’t know – the possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind. It hadn’t occurred to him to even ask – what will they do if the Stones are not an option? Because he hasn’t thought about it. Because it can’t be an option. The Stones have to be there, they have to, and that’s all Tony knows.

“He’s right, he wouldn’t.” Nebula intervenes, somber, but with dead certainty, and it helps to keep the slight wave of panic Tony can feel surging inside him. “Thanos looked for these Stones his entire life. Years wasted on this quest. And the Gauntlet makes him powerful – he wouldn’t give up power now that he believes he has it all.”

“That’s not all.” Bruce argues, raising his eyebrows. “I think trying to destroy the Stones could possibly kill him. I mean – if he destroys one by one, maybe, that would mean there still would be one left, and all six at once, he would have to snap his fingers again. But you don’t use something to destroy itself unless you want it to collapse in a massive catastrophe, especially with six of the most powerful things in existence.”

“Okay, assuming that he still has them, wouldn’t he hide them? To make sure no one else gets it?” Lang proposes, yet another question they hadn’t considered yet, completely undeterred by their vehement insistence of shooting holes into his questions.

“No, because that would give us the chance to get them and reverse what he did, and he knows it.” Tony counters immediately, and as soon as he does, he becomes uncomfortably aware of how unwilling to debate the possibilities he’s sounding right now, like he’s refusing to listen. He’s not. He really isn’t. But Tony – Tony knows. Tony knows he’s right on this. He has to be. “He won’t part with that thing so easily. Wherever he is, that’s where the Stones will be.”

“But that’s a problem.” Lang points out. “He knows we’ll be coming. So there goes the element of surprise.”

That’s… true.

“He’ll probably be waiting for someone to chase him and try to get revenge.” Rocket concedes, like he can’t argue with that statement either.

“You do not attack the entire universe the way he has done it and expect people will not fight back.” Thor agrees, if not too displeased about it.

“That sounds exactly like the kind of thing he would expect.” Nebula adds, with a curt nod and a sneering expression.

“It doesn’t matter what he’s expecting, it only matters how we can fight back once he starts attacking. Because he will. So we have to plan something to be prepared for that.” Tony points out, almost too aggressively for the complete lack of confrontation happening in the room.

“Is there any way to knock him out?” Lang inquires, looking at every single one of them expectantly.

“Not that we know of. We didn’t even manage to get close enough to hit him.” Rhodey admits bitterly.

“No.” Tony replies instead, with more certainty. “I tried. He didn’t even have all the stones yet, but not even the jackhammers of the armor did enough damage to knock him out. I got one drop of blood and that was it.

“What about immobilizing him?” Lang proposes, alternatively. “Trapping him in one of those things, like a big cage or something?”

“We could modify Veronica.” Bruce raises his eyebrows, tilting his head at Tony in suggestion.

“I don’t think it’s gonna hold him.” Tony clicks his tongue against his teeth, foot tapping anxiously on the floor. “And with a blast of the Stones he could just punch his way out.”

“How did you get close enough to touch the Gauntlet?”

“Mantis.” Tony explains, and not even a millisecond later, realizes that’s no explanation at all for most of the people in the room – and, thoughtlessly, he says, before he can think better of it: “FRI, pull up all footage from Mark L from between the attack in New York and my return to the Compound. Search for visuals of Thanos, the big, ugly, purple dude. Show me what you can find.”

“Right away.” FRIDAY quickly assures, and she brings in yet another projection into the room, bright, colorful flashing images blinking one after another in quick speed as she reviews the footage as fast as she can right before their eyes, in a blur of jagged motions and distorted, fast-paced sound streaming in from the speakers, muted sensibly by her before Tony even needs to ask.

It takes a second for Tony to realize his mistake.

(No—

(Not – not mistake, but—)

It takes him a moment to fully grasp the meaning of his own words, the consequences of it only hitting him long moments after the video projection is already setting up to replay right before every person in this room. It only hits him when he really looks, when he realizes what exactly is being displayed, what moment of it. That video is not just the footage Tony has of himself fighting Thanos, despite what he has said – that video contains more. It contains things Tony is not ready to relive yet. Maybe he never will. That video has Peter, and the Guardians, and Strange, it’s literally—

That video is the only register of their final moments alive. The only thing, besides Tony’s memories.

(No.)

(God, he’s not ready for this.)

(No.)

He can’t order FRIDAY to stop. He almost does, the words forming in his mouth on their own accord, swelling in his throat like an aborted scream and filling the spaces between his gums and teeth, threatening to bust, but they never make a sound. He trembles, but he cannot move.

He realizes he cannot stop this.

Not if he wants to make this right.

Tony watches, frozen in his place, eyes wild and mouth forced shut like he’s trying to break his own jaw with the force which he presses his teeth together, lips tight, trying to hold back any pitiful sounds that might threaten to escape in a sobbing breath. His head pounds with a terribly familiar sensation of holding back tears when he looks closer, and realizes that even in the fast-paced rewind FRIDAY is making, he can make out the flowy movement of Strange’s sentient cape, and the gray, bulky blur he sees on the corner when the camera shifts is most definitely Drax.

Suddenly, this doesn’t feel like fighting for their survival anymore. It doesn’t feel like he’s in this room to make this better, to find a way out, all the precedent events and discussion irrelevant face to the reality of what he’s doing, what he’s seeing, like he’s doing it on purpose to tear himself apart from the inside out, for a masochistic game. For a moment, Tony forgets what he’s doing here. He forgets, because all he can focus on is the dreadful feeling of watching his own eyes sweep through the dusty ruins of Titan, watches himself fight, unknowing of the horror that will follow, still believing he could win. Watching himself being naïve once more, to believe and to fail once more, to think himself strong and capable of accomplishing something while he knows that is not true. It hurts more, because he knows how it ends.

It ends here. In this room. This workshop.

Looking back and wishing he had done something else. Anything else. More.

The entire thing is quick and blurry, like an acid trip, but Tony doesn’t feel it registering right in his brain. He feels detached from it, cold, his mind so distant from the present, trapped in the memories of the smell and the ache and the rush of the battle, like he’s shutting down slowly. He’s lost in it, uncertain if he should stay or leave, unsure if he’s able to do either of those things, and in his delay, it’s Nebula and Rocket who step forward, as if hypnotized by the footage, compelled by the sight of their teammates – their friends – in the video, since who knows how long they had last seen them.

“It’s Quill and the others.” Rocket mumbles, dejectedly. “Gamora isn’t with them.”

“By the time he got to Titan, he had already taken her.” Nebula replies, her ragged, slightly robotic voice even more frazzled by the sheer weight of the grief it carries.

Rocket seems to choke on his own words, eyes gleaming dangerously with tears, before he says, in a whisper, “Did he—?”

“Gamora would have never let him get the Stone without a fight.” Nebula says, mournfully.

It feels wrong, to listen in during their conversation, even if they’re having it right here, between them all in the room. It just feels wrong. Nebula and Rocket are mourning people none of them had the chance to meet, even if Tony did encounter them for a short while, and their grief is so complete, so consuming it feels like disrespect to see it and not offer any help or condolences, even if they can’t.

And Tony knows. Tony knows he can’t console them because he knows no one can console him, because it’s too personal, it’s too close to his chest for him to be able to make it into words, and even if they asked, he wouldn’t know how to explain—

A blur of red and blue passes through the screen, swinging fast and wild, and Tony’s eyes go to the floor immediately.

(He can’t explain how much it hurts.)

From his point of view, the sequence is rushed and confusing, just as it felt when he was up there, fighting. There are odd turns of his head on some occasions, and it’s weird to watch and not be there, because it feels like being inside a helmet someone else is controlling the direction of. Somewhere deep inside, the part of Tony’s brain that sometimes makes weird associations with no rhyme or reason, thinks this might be his very own Blair Witch Project – found footage before catastrophe. There are moments when a direct attack is shot in Tony’s direction, and sitting here, where the threat has long since passed, is still not enough to stave off the kick of fear and adrenaline Tony feels in his blood when a huge purple beam comes straight to his face in a lighting strike, and Tony only has a second to recall he’s not actually in danger before the camera is obscured by the armor’s shield, instinct acting before the mind can even think about it.

Tony remembers how it felt.

Fighting him.

(He wishes he could forget.)

(Forget this whole thing.)

(Sleep.)

(And forget.)

FRIDAY freezes the image right at the moment where they have Thanos trapped on Mantis’ hold, pulled apart in all directions by the entire team’s effort, all of them struggling and straining to the last of their strength to keep a thing with as power as Thanos held down for even the briefest of moments. From this angle, Tony can see his own hands clearly, Strange to the left, pulling Thanos’ free arm with his magic rope and Drax’s head near the bottom while he holds Thanos’ leg down. He can’t – He can’t see Peter, but he sees the webs stuck to Thanos’ chest, which means that this is just before he went around to help Tony pull the Gauntlet, and he’s right there, right behind Thanos, and Tony can’t see him but he’s there.

The pain echoes in him in a paradoxical, nonsensical beat, aching fresh and bleeding, the wound tearing open anew just like every other time, like a gap between his ribs where a knife just keeps puncturing over and over again, relentless. Straight into his heart, vulnerable, past all skin, muscle, metal and bone. Nothing left there to protect him to the onslaught of hurt. But at the same time, it’s old, and weary, and scarred – and Tony feels old, much older than his age, like sorrow has etched itself down to the marrow of his bones, and it pumps and leaks into his bloodstream at every second, now a part of him just like any other.

Tony thought he was used to losing people.

He’s not.

He never could be.

Not for this.

Never for this.

“See?” Tony points, even though it’s unnecessary, just so he has something to do with his hands. The image is a little distorted by the movement of the helmet, but it’s not completely useless – there’s clearly a figure in green perched on top of Thanos, who stands gigantic, threatening, even down in one knee, as Tony’s arms in the Mark L armor at the base of the frame grasp him by the wrist and pull the Gauntlet out of the bastard’s hand with all their strength. “Mantis is holding him down by manipulating his mind. It was the only thing that would get him to stop fighting long enough for us to get close.”

“So we need something that will distract him long for us to do the same.” Thor concludes, nodding heavily.

“I say we just cut off his entire arm, just to be sure.” Rocket suggests, voice filled with venom.

“What are those things?” Lang points, to the bottom left corner where Thanos’s hand is being held down by Quill’s weird little machine. “That thing holding him down?”

“It’s Quill’s. It’s called a Gravity Mine.” Rocket clarifies.

“It seems to be holding him down pretty well. Can’t we get some more of those?”

“Sure, we’ve got them on the ship, but that’s not gonna be enough?” Rocket shrugs, unconvinced.

“What if we make a big one?” Lang proposes.

“You guys are thinking about this in the wrong way.” Rhodey interrupts, shaking his head, and they all turn to look at him with confused stares. “The guy is carrying the strongest weapon in the universe with him at all times – you have to treat it like it’s a bomb. A bomb that everyone else is affected by, but he isn’t, ‘cause he’s the one controlling it. That gives him an unfair amount of advantage. At any point where he feels like he’s losing, he’s gonna activate it and destroy our plans, before we even get the chance to kick his ass.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Thor inquires.

“We have to attack him from all sides. Keep him fighting us, individually.” Rhodey points out, motioning into the air with his hand like he’s chopping something, dividing them into imaginary categories. “And steal them when he’s not looking.”

“How is that any better than trying to freeze him long enough to get the Gauntlet?!” Rocket exclaims.

“We don’t need the Gauntlet, that’s the thing.” Rhodey reminds him. “We’re gonna have our own. So we just need the Stones.”

“Divide and conquer.” Tony half asks, half clarifies, looking at Rhodey for support, to receive back a sharp, assured nod.

“That’s right.”

Tony sighs and leans back to rest against the worktable, turning his back to the video and the prototype of the Gauntlet, for just a moment, needing to clear his vision to clear his thoughts.

That might work. Maybe the way is not brute force – but a trap, a sleight of hand of sorts. Maybe that’s what they need. They can’t win if they go toe-to-toe with the guy, Tony knows that much; especially because they don’t have the power to match him. No one does. It’s just reckless to assume otherwise. So they have to be smarter, get him in his own game, before he even realizes there’s something going on.

If they can trick him, maybe they have a shot, without anyone getting hurt.

Tony feels the weird sensation of a cold wind lick its way up his spine, like a bad shiver or a nasty feeling of being watched, and the hairs on his forearms stand on end suddenly, prickly hives stinging all over his skin; Making him contort on himself for no reason, just feeling wrong.

What the hell is that?

Tony stiffens.

It’s the fizzling sound that makes him turn. Tony knows that sound. He looks over his shoulder, confused, and for a moment, he thinks he sees a flick of red bursting into existence out of nowhere in the air and he frowns deeply, his entire face scrunching up in bewilderment—

When suddenly, a bright spark of red and orange snaps into existence right in front of Tony, scaring him into almost toppling over when he scrambles to get away from the table, his fight or flight instinct activating a visceral response and sending his heartbeat into skyrocketing speeds when the spark gets stronger and stronger, and it starts to move in a circular motion, big and wide, before Tony realizes what it is. The others make varying noises of confusion and wariness behind him, especially Lang, who very frightfully asks what is that, what is happening, but Tony can’t answer him, because he thinks he knows what this is, and what’s gonna be on the other side, but he’s not sure, and he can’t risk it.

The thing spins, faster and faster, creating an enormous glowing circle in the air before them – and with the loud, sharp sounds of it slicing through nothing, that so ominous sound of magic, an image manifests itself inside, blurry, but becoming sharper, bending reality in its’ wake, and, of all people, Barton is on the other side, looking at them like he has just swallowed an entire lemon for no reason, eyes dark and features distorted into a displeased frown.

“Holy shit, Barton!” Tony exclaims, just because he feels like he has to, because that thing has almost given him a fucking heart attack. Goddamn magic!

Portals and all that crap! Damn it! Wasn’t once enough? Once was enough. Tony doesn’t appreciate this total disregard for the rules of physics and normal, scientific understanding of reality, for fuck's sake.

“You need to come.” Barton says, very serious, not minding Tony’s outburst one bit.

“Through that?” Tony and Lang inquire at the same time, one with distaste, the other with full-on distrust.

“If you could hurry a little, it would help.” Barton urges, and steps back to give them a clear path, into what looks like the interior of the Sanctum from what Tony can recall, in its mostly wooden and dark construction, with the smell of old books and incense, and a strange hint of cinnamon. To the side, Tony can actually see Natasha, looking paler than he remembered, the shade only accentuated by the light tone of her bleached hair. Rogers, Tony realizes, and Wong, are on the other side, with tight expressions and stiff stances.

Tony doesn’t even have time to process what he’s seeing, before his lizard brain reads the room and instinctively tells him something is wrong.

“Is it safe?” Lang asks, visibly sweating and nervous, but Tony is already moving forward into the portal, striding with purpose, and he can hear some of them following him, recognizing at least Rhodey’s steps by the soft whirring of the exoskeleton around his legs, and Nebula’s quick and pointed steps marked by the sounds of her boots.

It’s jarring the sensation of stepping into a room through a portal, to leave the clean, cold, metallic smell of the workshop to enter the slightly stuffy, oak scent of the New York Sanctum, the lighting completely different and the very air in the room dustier and harder to inhale, thanks to the hole on the ceiling that so easily allows the dirt and ashes trickle in through the wind. Tony’s shoes make footprints when he walks, the ground covered in a sheen layer of ash that is scary to look at, to know what it means, and Tony avoids it firmly by keeping his eyes leveled with Wong’s, even as he steps forward and hears the others, more reluctantly, follow him through the glowing orange portal.

But the worse thing is the noise.

The lack of it. Outside.

It makes him feels like he’s stepping into another dimension altogether.

“Wong.” Tony greets, with an inexplicable feeling of being whiplashed by seeing the man, despite him being the very one who asked Rogers to locate him in the first place. “It’s good to see you’re fine.”

If nothing else, Wong looks the same. He’s serious, he’s poised, and his face gives nothing away, neither good or bad, and somehow, that is more distressing than Rogers’ grim face and locked jaw. The portal closes behind them and Tony doesn’t even find himself comfortable enough to look back and check if they are all here and everything is alright, focused on Wong’s fixed stare and impenetrable mask.

“Thank you. I’m happy to see you returned as well.” Wong nods a greeting, just as polite and proper as Tony gathered he would be from their brief interaction days before.

Tony doesn’t know Wong all that well. Or, at all. He doesn’t. As he feels like he’s out of his depth, all the talent to dazzle and convince and enchant gone with the years away from the unpleasant fake niceties of the high society, and his natural penchant to read people and analyze them I completely wasted on a person like Wong, who seems to have trained all his life to be the perfect imitation of a statue. That’s the kind of stoicism Tony would expect of trained spies, like Natasha and Barton, not a guy wearing eastern-looking robes in the middle of a secret magical society in the middle of New York.

So he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what Rogers told him. He has no idea what Wong is thinking right now. Tony can only fidget under his hard gaze, and hope this works.

“Strange… I don’t how if they told you, but—” Tony starts, awkwardly, but Wong swiftly interrupts him.

“I know what happened to him.” He says, somberly. “I suspected, when he never returned to the Sanctum.”

Goddamnit. It doesn’t get any easier. It doesn’t make it easier, at all, that that is the thing that makes Wong’s eyes go sad, even if his face remains unchanged.

“We will all feel his loss.” Wong admits, and it’s even more heartbreaking to hear how stiffly he holds himself through it, like he’s holding it all inside and not allowing himself to feel it.

Tony doesn’t know how close Wong and Strange were. He doesn’t know if they were just co-workers, or if they were friends. How long they’ve known each other, how much they trusted each other. He has no idea. The Sanctum seems empty, and that is warning enough that Strange might’ve been the only person who kept Wong company in this place, both of them defending reality together or whatever it was they did with their glowing portals and magic capes, but now Strange is gone. And the Time Stone with him. The Time Stone, that Strange and Wong were supposed to protect.

“Wong.” Tony says, as tactfully as he can manage, knowing the pleading in his voice is raw and too desperate, but he can’t help it. “We would like your help to find a way to reverse this.”

“So did the Captain said. And I will ask you the same thing I asked him.” Wong replies, with unexpected strictness in his voice, raising his chin and squinting his eyes at Tony. “How exactly do you plan to do that?”

Tony blinks, taken completely off guard. He looks at Rogers for clarification, helpless – why is Wong asking him? Didn’t Rogers explain anything?

“We’ll try to get the Stones back from him. We’re gonna snap our fingers, and we’ll bring everyone back.”

“And are you prepared to deal with the consequences of this choice, if you succeed?”

“What consequences?” Tony asks, more on the defensive than he’d like, although he’s fully aware this insane plan of theirs is not gonna come without a price tag attached. They will be messing with the most powerful being in the universe – to steal the very things that hold the foundations of this universe from him, and to use them to their own gain. This is arrogance of the highest degree; And Tony, better than anyone else, knows what kind of price arrogance usually demands. But this is different – they have no choice. It’s not arrogance, it’s despair, and it’s not just their lives on the line. It’s everyone’s.

What could possibly be a consequence on the face of that?

“The Infinity Stones are powerful, and their power is not something to be reckless with.” Wong ominously says, hands clasped together at his back and chest puffed out, unafraid of Tony’s or anyone else’s backlash, sure of his words. “Even with just the Time Stone, only the Sorcerer Supreme has enough control over its power to use it – and even then, we never have full control. The Stone has a mind of its own, and it doesn’t bend to just anyone.”

“We know.” Bruce intervenes, holding a hand up in a placating gesture, like Wong is an animal he’s trying not to spook. “We know the Stones have a will of their own. Even so, they can be used. Vision has already proven that, many times. We can use them to reverse this.”

“And which one of you is going to sacrifice themselves to snap your fingers and bring all those people back?”

“Sacrifice?” Lang chokes, forcing out a winded, humorless laugh. “Are you sure that’s necessary? I mean – the first guy is still alive, isn’t he? What’s to say we can’t do the same?”

“To be able to use all six Infinity Stones at once, Thanos has proven himself more powerful than every one of you combined.” Wong says, with no mercy at all, and it stings a little, despite everything. “To bring people back is harder than to dust them away. A single life is composed of many parts, some of them incomprehensible to the rational mind, and if those parts scatter, to bring them back together takes more effort than it takes to destroy them.”

“Information is never lost.” Tony argues, shaking his head, eyes burning holes into Wong in their intensity. “That is a principle of physics. It can be scattered, but not lost. Transformed, even, but never lost. So that means that, even if it’s hard, it is possible to piece everyone back together, right?”

“In theory, yes.” Wong concedes, after a thoughtful pause. “But not without a price.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Rogers cuts in, firmly. “But we really need an answer, Wong. You heard what they said. They’re willing to try, and so are we. Can you help us find out more about the Stones to make sure we can fight this guy?”

It’s harsh, it’s aggressive, almost confrontational – but he’s right. Rogers is right. It doesn’t matter right now. If they think about it too much, it will hold them back, and they are working on a schedule that doesn’t allow for any hesitation, at any point. Tony understands Wong’s hesitation, his suspicion of their intentions and their willingness to actually go forth with what they’re saying, not knowing them, let alone trusting them to do what they say they’ll do, but they have no choice. As much as Strange insisted the Stone had been his responsibility, of this Sanctum – Strange is gone, and whatever information Wong might be withholding is not helping, it’s harming their plan.

Wong looks between them with dark, mysterious eyes, his face pinched in what almost looks like displeasure, long, deep worrying lines on his forehead, a slight scrunch of his lips, and Tony is very close to opening his mouth and lashing out something less than amicable at him; He’s stressed, he’s anxious, and Wong’s attitude, while understandable in a more sensible situation, is pressing Tony’s buttons in the wrong way, and he has no time for this overbearing wise sage bullshit when they have much bigger problems on their plate—

“Follow me.” Wong says, curt and direct, and with less than a second for them to process his sudden change of heart, he gives a quick nod and turns around, walking into the Sanctum before making sure any of them is following.

Tony and Rogers share a deeply confused look, startled by the quick, unexpected decision, but Tony can see in his eyes that Rogers knows no more than he does at this point. He’s just as baffled, just as stressed.

“Where the hell are we going?” Tony whispers, looking at Natasha and Barton to see if any of them can give him any more information than Rogers, but they also don’t seem to know what’s happening.

They follow Wong into a long corridor, to a door. His pace is quick, rushed almost, so there isn’t much time to stop and analyze the surroundings as they follow – but it’s hard not to notice the change, because when the door opens, sand, dust, and rubble reveal themselves inside, scattered across the floor and small steps haphazardly, like an explosion has occurred in this room, irrationally large for the amount of destruction and totally contradictory to the clean environment just outside that same entrance door.

Tony has no time to ask. He looks at the ceiling, trying to see if another Hulk-falling-from-the-sky like incident might have occurred, but no dice. Whatever happened in this room, that wasn’t it. Wong jumps over the chaos of the debris with confident familiarity, leaving them to follow his steps hesitantly and warily, and they’re so concerned with not falling over and not touching anything in this seemingly very dangerous room, that when Wong crosses his way to the other side and opens another door, and ushers them inside, it takes Tony a second to assimilate that he has just teleported somewhere.

Because – Because how the hell did that happen?

The lighting changes again; This time, it’s vanishing, like the clouds are moving back to cover the entire sky in ashen darkness, the smell rancid and overwhelming, the air incredibly dry. Tony has no fucking idea where they are, and by the look on the faces of the others, they don’t know either – but they know something just went on, because some of them, especially Nebula, Natasha, Barton, and Rogers, look extremely wary as they take in their surroundings.

“This way.” Wong gestures to the side, and offers no other explanation for what he has just done, for what kind of door was that they just crossed, or how it happened.

Wong, surprisingly, guides them to a library. It is a library – an old, modest one, with a cold, soft light streaming in through the sparse, small windows, illuminating the specs of dust that flow slowly through the air, dancing in mist. The entire place smells even more strongly than the entrance of the Sanctum, wooden and metallic at once, with hints of spicy aromas from somewhere Tony can’t quite place, and books, so many books, and the scent of aging pages and scrolls, of leather covers and ink, and this is not what he was expecting, so he can’t help the way his eyes wander, curiously, through the piles and rows of books displayed all around, wondering what sort of crazy things must be written in so many pages that seem so thick and old.

“The library of the Kamar-Taj has hundreds of scrolls and books containing information about magic in its many forms over the years.” Wong calmly says, like he’s giving them a history lesson.

Oh, great. Magic.

Just great.

“The Ancient One had many books she favored, such as the old notes of Agamotto, the first person on this world to ever use the Time Stone and discover its power. Her private collection is considered too advanced for anyone but the most powerful Masters of the Mystic Arts, but given the circumstances, I’ll allow you to check it if you wish.” Wong gives a quick turn back merely to give them an approving look, before going even deeper into the room and descending a small set of stairs, that frankly are very small for such a large group to be following, and Tony suspects they are not meant to be here at all, in fact.

The lower part is a little darker, and even if there is more room in between the oddly shaped honeycomb shelves, to allow a small seating area with simple wooden tables and chairs for a reading room, it still feels like an extremely private space, something that intruders should never even know the existence of, much less be invited inside.

“Wong… Thank you.” Rogers says, before any of them can react in any other way, and Tony dares to steal a look at him, curious to see if Rogers has realized the same thing Tony has, and this is his way of ensuring Wong realizes how much this means to them, after his irritable display a few moments ago by the entrance.

Wong looks at him, face impassive, but at the sight of Rogers’ pinched brows and honest eyes, Wong gives him a tight, almost imperceptible smile and a small, agreeing huff; An enormous concession, considering how stoic he always is, and he walks up to the back of the room in quick strides, purposeful and knowing, and they all watch as he grabs a book with a shiny, circular design in its cover, decorated with what seems to be something that emits a faint glow right at the center, removing it from where it’s stuck to the shelf with a chain, which is usually a bad sign.

“Including this book.” Wong gestures, raising the book so they all can see it as he brings it closer, and carefully hands it to Rogers. “This is the Book of Cagliostro, a study of Time. It’s the book Stephen Strange studied to become the next Sorcerer Supreme, after the Ancient One passed away.”

A study of Time.

So it’s not just magic. Not all of it, at least.

“Why was it in chains?” Barton, echoing Tony’s thoughts, inquires, as Rogers passes him and Natasha the book, so they can inspect it on their own instead of looking over his shoulder. “It this some kind of forbidden book or something?”

“No knowledge is forbidden in Kamar-Taj.” Wong says, with all the tone of someone who is used to say that phrase over and over again, like a proverb learned a long time ago, to never be forgotten.

“Uh… You have any version of this in English?” Lang asks, and Tony turns around to see what the hell he’s talking about, when he realizes they have opened it – and the entire thing is in a language he doesn’t recognize.

“No.” Wong says, simply, and offers nothing else to help.

Well.

Okay, then.

“What language is that?” Natasha asks, brows furrowing in confusion.

“Sanskrit.” Bruce says, quickly. “I can’t read it, it’s a dead language, but they still use it in some parts of India, for religious texts.”

Wong seems satisfied by Bruce’s assessment, and gives him a very slight raise of his chin, nodding. “This is the book necessary for anyone trying to become the next Sorcerer Supreme, or use the Time Stone for any purpose. It’s the most important book for the Kamar-Taj.”

A book on Time. There have been many books and thesis on time before; By scientists, philosophers, all sorts of different people, over and over again. Ever since time has started. Tony may have, in his youth, familiarized himself with the works and theories of Einstein because space had once been something he admired, not feared, and he, like any other who grew up in the time he did, with the abilities he has, knows extensively about the life and the works of Hawking and his many peers – and academic rivals. Time is not a concept Tony has never considered before, exactly. But it’s not a concept Tony has ever proposed himself to untangle. To unravel, to find absolute truths in. That was never his job. Never his desire. As a scientist it might be fascinating, but as a life philosophy is a waste to sit and think about it, more so after the one and only occasion he needed to be told not to waste whatever time he had left. That…

That sort of thing tends to put things in perspective. Time included. So time, time is something Tony understands, in some levels, but never in this.

Now that he thinks about it, that he sees the book pass from hand to hand behind him under the scrutinizing gaze of his teammates, it doesn’t seem right, to have something that can simply control Time existing out there – and that this book, sitting here right in front of them, is an instruction manual on how to use it. That the Time Stone was just hiding here, and any crazy person who learned some magic and decided they could just pull on the threads of reality itself could simply have grabbed the Stone and changed everything.

Like Thanos. It’s not right.

Had they known…

Had they known, what would they have done?

(Vision had a Stone.)

(The Tesseract had been on their hands before. More than once.)

(Had they not been greedy, could this have been avoided?)

(Had they destroyed them, instead of using them—)

(Would it ever had gotten this far?)

Wong turns around again, startling Tony out of his stupor, and he begins walking back to the shelves, disappearing between them while chains rattle and release quickly as he grabs other books and piles them on his arm, efficient and familiar, until he has a small pile nested at the crook of his elbow to bring forward and settle on top of the table closest to them, with a loud band and a puff of dust flying off the pages as they are moved in who knows how long from their display.

“These are the other five.” Wong informs.

Bruce’s mouth falls open. “You have books on every one of them?”

“It’s the Ancient One’s private collection. None of these others are as detailed as the Book of Cagliostro, unfortunately, but they could be helpful.” Wong admits, like it’s something regretful, and not incredibly valuable information he has just revealed. “The Time Stone was the only one available for us to study through the centuries, so it’s the only one we have accurate information for.”

“How did you get the other ones?” Rogers frowns, eyes intense and mouth parted in just the smallest amount of surprise.

“Agamotto was the first to discover there were other Stones like the one he held, and he began a research to discover what were elements that created and controlled life in the universe. From learning about the body and soul, he learned about the universe, and the knowledge that there should be more Stones out there balancing the scales of life became obvious.”

“Obvious? That doesn’t sound all that obvious, but… okay.” Lang breathes out, mostly to himself, but Tony hears the whole thing since Lang is grumbling right behind him.

“The magical weapons we use to defend the Sanctums, the shields, the spells – they are all influenced by energy collected from another dimension. From a part of the universe ordinary men cannot see, but live with every day. It’s what allows us to open portals, to enchant weapons, and to alter reality.” Wong clarifies, gesturing into the air the same way Thor does, when he’s talking about magic Tony really doesn’t understand.

“Dark energy.” Thor breathes out, just like Tony suspected he would, because if there’s one person here that can follow along with this magic story, it has to be Thor.

“Thor, we gonna need some clarification on that, buddy.” Tony tells him, turning around to look at him, just as Rogers and Natasha do the same.

“I once told Jane,” Thor points out, calmly. “That my understanding of the universe and yours is not that far apart. We might have a better grasp on how to use the forces of the universe in Asgard, but many of the things we use without a thought are the things you study every day.”

“So we are using dark energy here? Or at least, they are?” Tony asks, gesturing at Wong with a lazy gesture of his hand. “The thing that allows them to open portals, that’s dark energy?”

“Dark energy is the first component of the universe. Before there was land, before there was even light, there was dark energy, and the elves who could control it. Our stories have a name for it – the void filled with magic. Perhaps our old myths have names for it too, from when humans still worshipped Asgardians like yours Gods. If the force of the stars forged by the encounter of fire and ice pulls galaxies and worlds together, the dark magic of the void is the thing that keeps them apart.”

“The Sorcerer Supreme who preceded Stephen Strange was discovered to have been collecting energy directly from the Dark Dimension.” Wong says, as if that clarifies anything, which it doesn’t.

“Just because you call something dark doesn’t mean it’s the same thing! You clearly are having some nomenclature issues!” Tony complains, annoyed. “So how are you using it?”

“Agamotto has met many beings beyond our comprehension thanks to the Time Stone. Beings that exist in places beyond time. Those beings have aided Agamotto in creating artifacts that allow us to reach into those dimensions and take power from them.”

“May I see those artifacts?” Thor requests, sensibly, and Wong calmly removes what looks like a ring from his fingers, bigger than any other ring Tony has seen, to fit two fingers at once, with a weird, plain rectangular slate on top with no other jewel or adornment visible from what Tony can see.

Thor steps forward, extending his hand to reach for the ring, cradling it in his palm with great care. He inspects it for a long moment, turning it in all directions and bringing it very close to his face to inspect the details, even though, from where Tony is standing, it just looks like a normal, totally simple, not at all important ring.

“Is this the artifact that allows you to create portals? Like the one you opened to bring us here?”

“That’s right.” Wong affirms.

“The marks on it.” Thor asks, voice distant as his thumb sweeps through the ring in slow, careful motions, eyes zeroed on it with the most burning intensity – and that is surprising, because from this distance, Tony can’t see any marks at all. Maybe a small dot or two on the top, that he had imagined might’ve been defects, but nothing he’d think is relevant in any way. “Who created them?”

“The same sorcerer that crafted the first Wands of Watoomb. Other artifacts infused with magical energy.”

“These are not just decorations.” Thor explains, looking up to them with dead certainty in his eyes, motioning to the ring with a small motion of his hand. “These are spells, like the ones on my hammer, and in Stormbreaker. Meant to harness energy from the very essence of the universe, and use it to produce power.”

“I don’t understand.” Lang admits, thankfully before Tony has any chance to react negatively to any of this lack of explanation. “If they are moving through portals using dark energy, and that’s controlled by the Reality Stone, what are the Space and Time Stone doing? Because portals would have to mess with that, right? Space-time?”

The worst thing is – Lang is right. Tony has no idea. This entire thing is not making much sense to him right now. He needs a break, he needs to eat and sleep, and maybe tomorrow this whole thing will be a little less impossible, a little less outrageous than it is right now.

“The Stones might control different aspects of life, but they are rarely separated from each other. Like every living being, we try to separate them in parts, but they are actually part of a whole – a whole not many people can see. Only those who can, can effectively control the Infinity Stones.”

Tony hides his face in his hands, pressing his palms against his eyes until it actually hurts, struggling not to lash out in frustration to this entire spiel of magic and dark energy and wands and all that stuff that makes no sense to him. And Wong is giving them books, in Sanskrit. Tony doesn’t know how to deal with that. He needs time, which is fucking ironic and awful, he needs to breathe, he needs to sleep, and he needs… he just needs to stop. Stop for a second. Just a second. He knows Wong is not just saying some nonsensical speech to string them on, he knows it – like every scientist looks at an experiments and sees a different way to explain what they see, the way Wong describes what he knows is influenced by his time in this Sanctum thing, by whoever taught him in a language that says physics and magic are the same thing, and that’s it. It’s just a language barrier. Tony knows this. But Tony is stressed and now they actually might have something more concrete to work with, written in these books they cannot read, and the world is going dark again and Tony feels like it’s swallowing him whole.

He needs to stop for a moment.

(He can’t.)

Just a second.

(He can’t.)

“We need to take these books back and give them a look. Is that alright with you, Wong?”

Tony pulls his hands away, turning to face Rogers with a baffled stare, but Rogers is staring straight ahead, and paying no mind to anyone else in the room.

Tony feels a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and he’s surprised to see it’s Natasha, not Rhodey, when he looks over to see, and he forces out a tight smile at her to affirm that he’s okay, even though he can feel his hands start to tremble, the stress and the anxiety finally wearing him down.

Wong doesn’t look very pleased by the idea, but he nods, knowing he has no choice. “You have to be careful.” He warns, very serious, pointing to the books in Barton’s hands. “The warnings come after the spells.”

“We won’t be using any spells.” Bruce assures him, smiling awkwardly.

“You can’t know that for sure.” Wong cryptically says, and Tony actually shivers as an unpleasant feeling of being judged runs through his body, completely unnecessary, because Tony absolutely does not intend to use any spells in any form to do what he has to do here. Thor might, but Tony for sure won’t. And if Wong tells him not to, Tony is pretty sure Thor won’t either. So it’s fine. No need for this ominous, very threatening, not at all creepy warning and cutting stare, no matter how well-intentioned it might be.

“We need to return to the Compound.” Rogers half comments, half announces, chin raised and shoulders squared, the leadership instincts kicking in, maybe even without him realizing it. “It’s not a good idea to stay out after it goes dark. We would appreciate if you could help us get back, like you did for the rest of the team.”

“You guys came in the Quinjet.” Rhodey points out, raising an eyebrow. “Are supposed to just leave it here?”

“No one is going to steal it.” Nebula shrugs, and she looks at Tony as if she’s daring him to contradict her, smug.

“I’ll fly it back.” Barton offers, with surprising determination, turning to hand the books over to Natasha so he can make himself available.

“Alone? In the dark?” Rhodey asks, concerned.

“What’s the point of being Hawkeye if I can’t drive in some tough conditions?” Barton smirks, and although it’s stiff and not fully sincere, his eyes are calm and tranquil, almost warm, and Tony suspects this might be something familiar for him in some aspect, something that equals to a relaxing state of mind, or a peaceful memory, or something to find comfort in, in being useful – whatever it is, it’s the most emotion Tony has seen in Barton’s face in days, an emotion that’s not negative, and that, in itself, is reason enough to let him do it.

Tony also has the very distinct impression that Barton just wants to be alone for a while. He doesn’t know why, he just feels like that’s the case. If it is… Well, Tony can’t blame him – but he can’t imagine, for the life of him, why flying around on a Quinjet in the dark across an empty city and a sky full of ash would somehow be better than heading back to the Compound and locking himself up in his room, but Tony has never claimed to understand Barton any better than he understands, I don’t know, Lang. He and Barton were never properly close. And like the others, any knowledge Tony might have had, or suspected he had, of Barton before now amounts to practically nothing, standing on uneven and unsure ground, not nearly enough that he’d dare to make a guess on why Barton would willingly offer himself to do this, to step away from all of them, even Natasha.

But Natasha doesn’t share the same concern.

“We trust you.” Natasha says, with no deception or hesitation, and her approval is all Barton needs, and his smile turns a little more sincere at the edges, just a tiny bit. Natasha’s approval also mellows Rogers easily, so when he nods, no one else thinks to raise any objections anymore. Because if she’ll approve it, who is going to contest it? No one. Not when it comes to Barton.

“I will reopen the portal for you, just outside this library. You will be safe.” Wong assures them, kindly.

“Isn’t it better if you come with us?” Natasha asks, standing her ground even as the others begin to turn to leave. “It’s not safe to stay alone when we don’t know what or who is out there.”

“I cannot leave this Sanctum. Someone has to protect it, at all times.”

“Are you sure?” Tony insists, motioning towards the books. “We could use your help. Maybe with the translation of some of these.”

“I’m sorry.” Wong ruefully says, and he sounds like he really means it. “There isn’t much I can do to help you at this point. The translation would take a long time, which I’m sure you can find ways to make it faster, and I cannot leave the Sanctum unguarded. As much as the world may need allies now, against Thanos, there are still other beings out there who have not attacked, but will, if we are more vulnerable. I cannot let that happen.”

Whatever those beings might be, and where they might come from, he doesn’t say. Maybe it’s just one of those things they aren’t meant to know. Something beyond the lines Wong is willing to cross for them at this moment. They can at least appreciate his help for what it is, right now, and hope that whatever Wong is concerned about is truly just a paranoid concern, not an actual threat – and if it is… Well, Tony can only hope he will contact them and ask for help if the need arises. They might be drowning in problems already – they are, God, they really are – but Tony will come if Wong calls them. He always will.

“You know you can call us, right?” Tony asks, softly, with a tilt of his head and teeth worrying his lower lip, hoping Wong can tell that he really means it, he really does.

Wong looks at him like he can actually see through Tony, like he’s seeing much more than Tony can imagine, and after a tense, breathless beat, Wong closes his eyes and gives a heavy nod, the gesture almost ritualistic with how sincere it is; a deep gratitude and transparent honesty echoing in the space between them with a force way too strong for such an innocent, placid movement.  

Thor hands Wong his weirdly shaped ring back, and Wong gratefully smiles at him, small and contained, his eyes crinkling just the tiniest bit with amusement, and extends his hand to the stairs, to encourage them to walk out first, and they follow easily, even as Natasha and Bruce exchange books between them as they walk, Bruce’s eyes attentive and curious on the text, even if he can’t read it as it is.

They don’t have to walk back all the way to the strange reality-bending door this time. Tony can hear the whooshing sounds of the circular portal before he even sees it, so unique it’s starting to become familiar, and a quick glance over shoulder confirms that it’s – yep, it’s Wong, doing the same thing Tony remembers Strange doing – holding two fingers up in both hands, holding one still in front of his body as the other makes circular motions in the air, conjuring a portal by seemingly sheer will power. Though maybe – Tony looks, trying to be sneaky, and he’s pretty sure he’s not successful, but he can see now, the ring on Wong’s fingers, something he hadn’t seen Strange use, but apparently, was the responsible for this thing they called magic on their daily basis.

He wonders if Strange’s lack of accessories is due to the fact that he was this Sorcerer Supreme Wong referred to so extensively, and that somehow guaranteed him more magical perks than the others.

And he wonders if that’s not the case, and if it isn’t, what the hell exactly is that ring.

“I’ll be there in an hour.” Barton says, and Tony finds him just standing there, making no move to enter the portal as the others do, and it’s weird, the idea of leaving him behind, but when Rogers and Natasha nod, and all the others start crossing without hesitation, it’s hard not to follow them, no matter how queasy his stomach feels at the idea of losing sight of one member of their group.

But he goes.

He goes, because he doesn’t have the courage to ask Barton why he wants to stay.

The crossing back is just as jarring as the first one – the smell is the worst thing, the quality of the air, and even as they step back into the brightly lit, open space of the workshop, Tony feels claustrophobic, a wave of sluggish exhaustion finally hitting him like it had been waiting all this time for a moment where his defenses would give just a little bit, crashing against them like a freight train. The vaguely knows the others are shuffling about uncertainly, picking up the books and skimming through them lazily, unsure of how to proceed now they are back and have new, unexpected information to work with, but have yet to find a way to translate them to make them useful.

As the last person crosses the threshold of the portal – Natasha, of course, taking a glance back to look at Barton until the very last moment, the gleam in her eyes indescribable – it closes behind her with a swift movement, and they are all left staring to the panel on the far back wall, still being displayed there since this morning—

(Had it really been this morning?)

(Shit, the day has been so long.)

(He’s completely losing his sense of time.)

And Tony, suddenly, paranoidly, realizes he’s looking back at his own workshop – and that the portal had brought them here, with no trouble, in and out; Past FRIDAY’s security, past all alarms and safety measures, without so much as a notification to the system. That’s important. That’s – That’s important. For security, yes, but – that’s important, and Tony doesn’t know why, but it is, and he needs to remember this because they could use this. He doesn’t know how yet, but they could. He just knows it.

He hates this feeling – the feeling of being on the cusp of realizing something, but have it just out of his reach, his mind to stretching far enough to make an essential connection no matter how hard he tries. His brows scrunch together harder and harder the more he thinks about it, but the cloud of haziness doesn’t quit, just muddying his brain the harder he tries to scrub it down; Eyes burning so sharply with the dry feeling that accompanies the bone-deep tired feeling that he, irrationally, almost feels like he’s going to cry.

He doesn’t know why this is happening.

The portal. Barton. Wong. The books. The Gauntlet. Why is there so much going, and why doesn’t any of it make sense?

Jesus fuck, he needs to sleep.

“Tony.”

Tony flinches hard when the gravelly voice comes accompanied of a touch to his elbow, unexpected, even if soft and gentle, and though the movement is not enough to pull his arm away completely from the brush of fingers around his arm, it pulls away from the pressure, in a gesture that screams of rejection and fear, even if unconscious, and unintentional.

Tony turns, and looks at him. Eyes wide, mouth parted, shoulders hunched defensively.

Steve looks like Tony has just shot him point blank.

He removes his hand slowly, the touch dragging across Tony’s arm with a shocking sensation of electricity, itching all the way down until the cold fingers leave completely from his skin, and Tony hates how self-aware of it he is, the path left tingling across his forearm like they’re sinking into him, the trail of his digits, lingering long after any contact has been made at all.

(His hands are so cold.)

It’s nonsensical of him to focus on such a thing.

He startled Tony. Bad.

Tony doesn’t know what he wants.

He stares at Rogers, feeling out of place, weirdly outraged, shaken and subdued, all at once, time frozen in the very few seconds in which they stare at each other like they have both been shocked by their own reactions, reeling from it so hard they can’t identify what’s happening with the other, lost in the translation in between.

Rogers has not touched him since Siberia. Tony doesn’t know why this is the thing he focus on, but it is.

Rogers has not gotten this close since Siberia. Since before. And even then, Tony can’t remember him ever being so subtle, so careful, gentle, even though Tony knows – by logic, not by experience – that the man is not all violence and strength all the time. No matter what sometimes his brain tells him – he’s not. But that gentleness has never had any place between them. Or the Avengers. Even in camaraderie, gentleness is not something that could survive within the team, apparently, like a flower dying of thirst easily as anything, even if managed to get past the seed at all. Softness doesn’t survive in battle, much less lingers long enough to be missed when it’s gone.

The tenderness of the touch feels like a blow because it’s just as unexpected as one.

(Why is he doing this.)

(What does he want.)

(Why—)

“Are you okay?” Rogers asks, after his hand has retreated for long enough that Tony should not be as taken aback as he is anymore, but as his brain starts to come back online, he sees the tightly woven tension in Rogers’ muscles, his hurt, but concerned and baffling sincere eyes, the look only heightened by the somber aura the beard and the long hair give him.

“Yeah. Fine.” Tony exhales, a little too winded. Mercifully it just sounds like exhaustion, which is the most perfect excuse he could come up with at the moment.

Rogers doesn’t look like he believes him. But he also doesn’t look like he wants to argue about it. He looks like Tony is fucking breaking his heart, and Tony has no idea why, because who cares if Tony is tired – they all are. They’re all tired. Tired of fighting, tired of living like this.

Tired of trying and trying and always falling short.

“We better have some rest. The day has been long.” Rogers says, softly, almost intimately, directly to Tony, not to the room at large. “We can go through those books first thing tomorrow morning. But I think we need to take a break.”

They’re not co-captains – or captain and reluctant right hand – anymore, so there’s really no need to conspire in secrecy like this. But old habits are really hard to break, it seems – and, well, if anyone is going to argue with Rogers, it’s gonna be Tony, so it makes sense that Rogers is talking to him. But he doesn’t have to. It makes no difference at this point.

And it’s not like Tony can argue against having some rest, in the state he’s in.

“You’re right about that.” Tony concedes, but then, because he can’t help it, he presses the bridge of his nose and squeezes his eyes shut, breathing in deeply to calm himself down. “But we need to take a look at those books as soon as possible.”

“We’ll divide them between us. Share the workload.” Rogers says, a little louder, and he turns back quickly just so he can grab some of the books Bruce has laid on top of the table, passing one to Natasha, one to Scott. “Can FRIDAY help us with the translation?”

“I don’t think she has Sanskrit in her database, but she can download some translators and go from there. Might not be the best.”

“We have some translators too.” Rocket interrupts, jumping up the table so he can grab a book as well, turning it in all directions so he can inspect the cover. “If you can give us access to the robot lady’s data, we could download it to our stuff and work faster on it.”

At the very first second, Tony’s wary nature tells him absolutely not, he won’t allow anyone to mess with his AI, not again, no matter who they are; But the moment dies almost as soon as it forms, a rush of air leaving his lungs harshly as he remembers that Nebula has literally fixed his nanite housing unit and saved his life just a few days ago, while he was unconscious, and nothing bad came out of it. Which doesn’t mean it can’t happen – but at this point, resistance is simply going to make things worse, not better. It’ll pay off to risk it, at least more than it will avoid it.

“Sure.” Tony concedes. “FRI, I’m giving Nebula and Rocket access to you. Work on getting some Sanskrit into your vocabulary and in their own systems too – do the best you can to help us crack those books as quick as possible.”

“Affirmative, Boss.” FRIDAY informs, and falls back silent naturally, as she undoubtably begins to work her way through every channel she has available to update her translators and, by consequence, Nebula’s and Rocket’s.

Rogers shifts beside him, like he’s uneasy, and Tony’s eyes get drawn to him on instinct, attracted by the movement, and Rogers takes the cue to stare at him again, face smoothing out into a sympathetic expression. “Call Pepper. Get a few hours in. We’ll meet down here tomorrow and pick up from where we stopped, alright?”

Pepper.

Dear God, Tony had forgotten—

Oh, God. Pepper.

He needs to call her.

He needs to know if she’s okay.

Fuck, Pepper.

(Fuck, he hates himself.)

(How could he forget her.)

(Fuck.)

“Sure.” Tony heaves, eyes distracted. “Okay. ‘Till tomorrow, then.”

Rogers stares at him for a beat too long, but then says:

“Goodnight, Tony.”

And just as cryptically as every other interaction they’ve had so far, Rogers gives him a small, almost shy nod, before he turns to the others and tells them to get some rest as well; And so, with the books shared between them, they start to leave, saying goodbye and goodnight in hushed tones and heavy steps, leaving through the door quietly, like ghosts. Rhodey lingers, of course, because he’s the best, and he lays a hand on Tony’s shoulder and shakes him a little, asks if he’s okay, and maybe it’s the bags underneath his own eyes or the slouch of his shoulders that make him accept so easily the weak smile Tony gives him in return, the obvious lie of I’m fine, and the clear diversion tactic that is Tony redirect the conversation to him.

“I’ll sleep fine.” Rhodey says, forcing strength into his voice. “And so will you. Alright? Call Pepper, tell her to come up, and sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

His tone makes it very clear that Tony has no other choice.

(Always the protective older brother, his honeybear.)

“Of course.” Tony huffs. “Tomorrow we’ll be good as new. You’ll see.”

Rhodey throws him a disbelieving look but says nothing. With a squeeze, he releases his hold and walks out too, leaving Tony to his weariness and his thoughts, and what the fuck are they going to do about those books now?

Rogers takes one, so do Natasha and Lang. Rocket and Nebula take the other two. The one in Bruce’s hand stays, the Time one, as he looks to the cover as if his long, intense stare could unlock its’ secrets, and both him and Tony, as they are left alone in the room, take in deep breaths and let their shoulders sag, because no one else is there to see them.

 “Well.” Tony sighs, rubbing a hand against his sore neck, wishing the cricks would vanish, with just a brush of his hand. God, he’s old. “I’m gonna get some shut eye. See you in the morning, Jolly Green.”

“Tony.” Bruce suddenly calls, abrupt and choked, almost like he shoves the words out before he can think better of it. “Can we talk?”

Bruce looks nervous. His grip on the spine of the book is tight, the tendons on his wrist jumping out as he flexes his fingers, anxiously.

“Yeah.” Tony pauses, concerned. “What’s up, buddy?”

Bruce hesitates for a second, looking at Tony with large, curious eyes, an analyzing gleam to them that makes Tony feel like he’s being studied, before, very carefully and politely, Bruce asks:

“Are you gonna tell me what was that?”

Tony’s eyebrows raise in confusion. “What? The magic thing? Don’t ask me, Thor is the one who understood the talk. I only got like half of it.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” Bruce exhales exasperatedly. “I mean Steve. What was that?”

Again?

Crap.

Tony groans harshly.

They’ve been over this.

“Not sure what you’re talking about. Everything’s fine.” Tony says after licking his lips, with a neutral shrug and a slight raise of his eyebrows, a picture of innocence.

“Doesn’t seem like everything’s fine.”

“I thought you weren’t that kind of doctor.” He jabs, even though he knows it’s not fair, hoping the not so amicable reply will dissuade Bruce from prodding, taking unfair advantage of his non-confrontational nature to keep himself far away from his delicate topic.

“Tony, I’m not…” Bruce stutters, sounding ashamed. “I’m not the best person to deal with this kind of things. You know that.”

“Yeah, I seem to remember you falling asleep on me in the middle of my traumatic tale a few years ago.” Tony pokes back, not truly bitter about it, but helpless to the urge to infuse a little bit of a reprimand into his tone. “You really have no talent for the whole therapist thing.”

“I did tell you.” Bruce defensively says, a little angry, but then he sighs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. But I’m not qualified, and I had… so many issues of my own—”

God, this is not fair. He’s being unfair. No matter how much he wants to avoid this – this is just him being petty, and look at Bruce, his retreating posture, his averting gaze – he doesn’t deserve Tony’s bullshit.

And it’s true. Tony is just being an asshole, shit – Bruce is his friend, not his therapist, and it’s not his job to take care of Tony’s pile of issues and traumas. That’s Tony’s problem, not anyone else’s. and it’s not cool of him to make Bruce uncomfortable just to avoid the conversations he doesn’t want to have. If Tony was a normal adult, he could simply talk about it without going irrationally emotional over it, or maybe he could respectfully ask to be left alone, and never address this again – but Tony is not normal. He’s defensive, and an over-sharer, and he’s wary, and insecure, and this conversation still brings a lump to his throat he cannot swallow or spit out no matter how hard he tries, and if he can’t dealt with it in any other way, he’ll have to talk about it.

He… should. He should. Talk about it. It’s like Bruce said – he deserves to know, no matter how much Tony hates it. Bruce has already seen Tony do so many shameful things, Ultron the worst of it up to date, and it kills Tony the mere idea that this might put another mistake on that list, maybe even dethrone the entire mess of 2015, and isn’t that all of Tony’s nightmares transformed into reality – losing the respect and the alliance of one of the very few people that he still has from, in the middle of the biggest crisis they’ve ever faced?

He feels awful, his entire being flooding with shame.

He wishes it was simpler.

Everything.

“Relax, I’m just pulling your leg.” Tony backs down, trying to sound playful. “I know I’m not the easiest person to deal with. And I talk a lot. Sometimes, when I shouldn’t. But that’s okay! I got it out my chest and you took a nap, all in a good day of work. Doesn’t actually matter if you weren’t listening.”

Bruce considers him for a second, eyes knowing.

“Well, I’m listening now.” He ominously says. “So… Would you like to tell me what the hell is going on with the team?”

“There’s nothing going on with the team.” Tony reflexively says, and wants to slap himself for it, because that’s exactly the opposite of what he should do, damnit.

“You don’t have to lie, Tony.” Bruce laughs, but it’s humorless, sad. “I can see.”

“See what?” He asks, defensively.

“You, acting like Steve slapped you when he touched your arm.”

“I was just surprised, don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“Yeah.” Bruce says, unconvinced. “And is the way he looked at you like you kicked his dog also just a coincidence?”

Tony presses his lips together in a tight line, both angry and ashamed of his anger, and he looks to the side stubbornly , trying to avoid saying something he’ll for sure regret.

“I’m just trying to understand, Tony, I swear.” Bruce pleads, so fucking sincere and earnest, it hurts Tony’s heart. “I was going to leave it alone,  I swear – but then I find out you were hiding the phone, and I can’t imagine why you’d do that, since when Steve and the others got to the Compound, Rhodey accepted them with open arms. And now, the way you reacted… What happened, that Rhodey is fine with them, and you aren’t?”

“How did you manage to tell Rhodey you called Rogers and failed to mention the phone, by the way?” Tony deflects, actually half curious to know how this big of a problem could’ve been so easily dodged until now – but also, very eager to steer the conversation in another direction.

“It just didn’t come up.” Bruce curtly replies. “And don’t try to turn this on me, I’m not so easily distracted, Tony. Seriously.”

Damnit.

Damn Bruce for being so… so concerned and cautious, Godammit. Tony really admires that on him – but not now, not about this, not when he would rather forget and ignore, pretend it never happened, to not tear open any old wounds who never healed properly in the first place. And the discussion is useless now. The time where it was relevant is long gone.

(And doesn’t that mean it was useless in the first place—)

(Doesn’t that mean it was all for nothing—)

(Doesn’t that mean it was all his—)

“What happened between you two?” Bruce asks, softly, almost like he’s afraid of startling Tony is he speaks too loudly, worried, and so, so kind, and Tony wants so badly to trust him, even though he’s scared.

But this is Bruce.

This is Bruce.

If Tony can’t trust him—

(What hope is there for this team?)

“The Accords broke us. Bad.” Tony admits, and he kind of hears the words as if its someone else speaking them, like they’re not coming from him, like a narrator has taken over his body as the memories flash through his mind like rolls of old films, as if he’s no longer a person, no longer himself – just a theater for the unpleasant exhibit of his past regrets, the walking register of a disaster he’d rather be left forgotten away by time. “Well, not the Accords themselves, but the fallout from it. We couldn’t get it together. There were… irreconcilable differences between us, if you want to call it that, and it… It caught up to us. The cracks in our armor.”

Tony shrugs, even though the last thing he feels is nonchalance.

He can feel his hands tremble where they lay when he crosses his arms protectively over his chest.

“The sad thing is how easy it was to pick us apart.” Tony laughs, but there’s no humor in it.

“Did you disagree over it?” Bruce asks, not because he doesn’t get it, but because he wants to push Tony to keep talking. Tony, like the pathetic, starving for validation mess that he is, takes the opening without even thinking twice, unthinking of how he’s cracking his sternum open and letting his heart pour out like it’s spilled ink, of how much this will hurt if it gets too far.

“I was for it, Cap was against it.” Tony says. “I said we needed to be put in check, because – Because people were getting angry at us, not just governments, people, and they were asking the thought questions we didn’t have any answer to. Who is responsible, who is to blame? When SHIELD broke, there was no one we could trace back our activity to. We became vigilantes for the US government. And sure, that sort of thing is fine here – but we crossed borders, and we never bothered to ask if we were welcome or not. And some of us had the audacity to get angry when they said we weren’t.”

Tony stops suddenly, realizing he’s getting stressed over it again, and takes in a deep breath to calm himself down.

“Cap had other concerns.” He says, and he sounds angry, despite how hard he tries to sound neutral over the whole thing. “He was concerned that being controlled by a panel would stop us from helping people. Like the Sokovia thing, before Ultron. It wasn’t aliens, but it was HYDRA, and they were just hiding there – and the regular law enforcement couldn’t have taken down that fortress like we did, not without massive casualties. But if Sokovia didn’t allow us to intervene, they would have to send hundreds of soldiers there to fight, and get hurt, when we could finish the whole thing in an hour.”

Bruce makes a pause. Blinks. “When you put it like that, it really doesn’t sound like it’s a good idea to sign.”

“Yeah, but what about the other half of the coin? When we kill someone?” Tony asks, hissing, teeth gritted tight and so very painful on his jaw. “Because that’s what happened. It happened, and no one held us accountable for it. How many people we wounded or killed in New York back in 2012? And Sokovia? And DC? And Nigeria? That’s what caused this. We accidentally killed seven Wakandans and the King himself grabbed us by the neck and said that if we didn’t do anything to make up for it, we shouldn’t have any right to keep the team active. And he was right.

Tony remembers T’Chaka, and T’Challa, and he can’t stop the flush of shame and rage that whorls like a hurricane inside his stomach, heavy like a boulder, sinking into his guts hot like he’s swallowed burning coal. He remembers, even when Rogers seems so determined to forget. He remembers why that document exists in the first place.

“We shouldn’t be above the law.” Tony growls. “We don’t have the right – not even being superheroes. What’s gonna happen to the families of the people we kill because we were reckless? What’re gonna do when we go somewhere and the people chase us out with pitchforks?”

“The public was having a bad reaction to this?”

“They were calling for Wanda to be deported.” Tony says, pointedly. “Or worse. And don’t forget how people reacted when the Iron Legion landed on Sokovia. Do you know how many countries signed that document? 117. That’s over a hundred nations who thought we were out of control, but Rogers thought we were just fine the way we were.”

“And this was about the people too, not just about the government?”

“Every place had its own motivation for it, sure, but the PR sure was having a field day going through all the threats and less than polite letters we’d been getting for the past five years.” Tony huffs, sarcastically. “Are you worried about hidden agendas too, like Cap?”

“I always am, Tony.” Bruce says, but not unkindly – simply factual. “I understand why you two would disagree over it – but this… This is more than that, Tony. Steve looks like he’s been through a rough patch, and you too. You look at him like you can’t recognize him. A disagreement doesn’t cause that.”

No.

(But a lie does.)

“I guess we all had our agendas.” Tony cryptically replies, an ugly smile on his face. “I had mine, Rogers had his. We couldn’t compromise. I couldn’t, not about this – I promised I would be accountable by what I did, I made that promise a decade ago and I’m not gonna back down on it just because Rogers has trust issues. I owe this to a lot of people. And maybe, yeah – maybe if we had more time, or if we hadn’t fought so much, maybe we could have found a solution, but we didn’t, and that’s it. We didn’t, and we didn’t make it. So now it’s all…”

What.

Now it’s all what?

Broken? Beyond repair? Hopeless?

Tony doesn’t even know.

“It shouldn’t have been about Ross.” Tony helplessly says. “It shouldn’t. Ross didn’t matter. We could have gone over him, I have. I pushed him away this whole time, from—”

Peter.

“From every other domestic hero working alone out there. There was a motion for it to become a register of every active superhero, but it never passed. It remained what it was supposed to be – a work contract. We would report back to the UN and have regular debriefs to make sure we were meeting all the regulations and deadlines, and a whole lot of people would have slept better knowing an armed American team wouldn’t invade their lands and raise hell over their heads in the middle of the night. That was all.”

Bruce mulls over the information for a long, long while, the silence stretching between them like licorice, thick and viscous, the room stuffy and uncomfortable with all the tension between them, as they stand on a tightrope where neither of them knows whether to go forth or back down.

“How much leverage would Ross have? Over us?” Bruce asks, curiously.

Tony sighs roughly, tired. “He’s – was – the buffer between us and the UN. He was the Secretary of State, hard to get past him completely, all the time. But in theory, he’s an errand boy. He’s take immediate action in case of any trouble, and then he’d report to the UN and they’d make the final decision.”

“And in practice?”

In practice, it was all far more complicated, wasn’t it?

“He would be responsible for detention in case of unlawful action—”

“Which means arrest.” Bruce interrupts, not sugar coating it at all.

“Yes.” Tony bitterly concedes. “But only until we could establish contact with the UN. From there, it’s up to them. Ross is not part of the decision panel, so his arrest order is just a formality, not a final decision.”

“And where would that person be taken to, while the panel decides?” Bruce asks, and it’s right in the bullseye, isn’t it? “Because we both know most prisons can’t hold any of us, and SHIELD’s special holding cells are gone.”

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“The Raft.”

Bruce closes his eyes, like he’s in pain, and he heaves out a suffering breath.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a problem, Tony. That’s a real big problem.”

“What else would you propose?” Tony prods, irritably. “You know no other place would be strong enough. I could break out of any prison in the world is they gave me so much as a paperclip – Imagine what Thor could do. Or Natasha, or Barton.”

“Or the Hulk.” Bruce says, in agreement, in desperation, in sympathy. “You’re right.”

“Ross was a bastard, but we had no way of getting rid of him. Not yet, at least.” Tony says, frantically. “But if we all had signed, we could have amended them later. They weren’t perfect, but the Accords were necessary. If – If we all had worked for it, they could have been good. But we let them get a hold over us. We destroyed an airport, and we destroyed ourselves.

He’s desperate.

He’s desperate for – for something, for anything Bruce might give him, but Bruce only stares and thinks, and stares some more, his face is unreadable and Tony’s nerves are fraying at the edges and rattled like they haven’t been in a really long time, the stress from reliving it and the lack of response – or approval or reprehension, or both, of anything; Tony doesn’t know how to live in this suspense, how to stand on this edge of reprieve and loss like it’s the tip of a blade, threatening to cut him open at the slightest move.

He can only watch, heaving and helpless, as Bruce lays down the book and runs his hands over his face, pushing his glasses up until they almost fall off his face, and he has to take them off before they break on the floor. He looks like he’s thinking so hard there should be smoke leaving his ears. He pulls up a chair and sits by the table, like he doesn’t have the strength to hold himself up anymore, and Tony jitters in place as he takes in a breath, clearly steeling himself for whatever he’s about to say, and Tony has no idea what that’ll be.

“You know, Tony… I— I lived in some very bad places before. When I was hiding, I had no choice but to… find somewhere to lay low, wherever that place might be. And you learn things. Things about what the people down there are really like, and how they survive every single day.” Bruce unexpectedly says, with all the tone and feeling of an old soul, who has seen too much, been through too much, as it’s still not allowed to rest. “The way those places grow. The things they allow to themselves to live with, just so they have a place in the world, it’s...”

He shakes his head. It’s like the word itself is too horrible to even pronounce.

“There was this one time, Ross found me.” Bruce recalls. “He sent in a unit of… heavily armed, unauthorized agents into that place, so many civilians around, no one knew what was going on. You can’t – you can’t do that. If you do, people fight back. They’re afraid, they’re used to living afraid, and everyone who barges in is a threat. Shoot first, ask questions later.”

Tony feels the sharp edge of the knife entering his ribs, past the muscle and metal and into soft, vulnerable flesh, like it’s piercing a lung. He can’t breathe. It hurts, not just the admission of Bruce’s pain – but the familiarity of the tale, how easily Tony can see where the experience and the Accords discussion blend into one another, how many times this problem has happened over the history and just left unsolved, just building itself on top of the ones before, until no one can see a solution for it.

“When Ross’ unit entered the slums, I just ran.” Bruce admits, like it’s shameful. “I ran, and ran, and never looked back. I didn’t even think how it would look. I was just running for my life. And it wasn’t until later that the gunshots started.”

Tony frowns, not following.

“Not Ross’. The people.” Bruce elucidates, his eyes dark. “They keep guns. There’s a whole society in there, they are the rulers and the… protectors, I guess, of the place. And if someone invades it—”

“They kill them.”

Bruce nods, somberly.

“It’s their instinctual response. They won’t politely ask what you’re doing there, if you just barge in with a gun, when they’re not expecting. If they don’t want you there. They just shoot back. Because they can’t take the chance you won’t shoot first. More so when you’re military.” He takes in a wet, choked breath. “I couldn’t go back to make sure the people who helped me were okay. There was this girl, Martina – If they suspected she helped me, and if they thought I had something to do with the unit that invaded the slum, they could have taken her, to try and make her talk. She could have been hurt, and it would’ve been my fault.”

(Fuck.)

(Fuck.)

“Is that what we were?” Bruce asks, breathless. “Were we just… An army that barged into someone’s home, someone who already had their home threatened every day, and got away with it? I know it’s not the same, and those people were not always good people, but I can’t help but think of Martina, and Betty—"

“We fought for a good cause.” Tony says, hollowly, not sure if he’s trying to make Bruce feel better or himself – or if he says it for any other reason at all, just to hear himself say it, just to make sure the words exist, that they won’t get lost in the long list of mistakes they all have to carry on their backs at every second of the day.

“But at what cost.” Bruce says, and it’s not a question – it’s just a sigh. It just… is.

Bruce heaves out a shuddering breath, frame shaking and hands trembling as he curves into himself and hides his face in his palms, pressing the heels to his eyes, like he could hold his head together by putting pressure on it, like a splitting headache inside were threatening to crack it open like a fragile china vase. He drags his hands down and plays with his lips, squeezing them and wringing his fingers, while he looks distantly to the floor, like he’s not truly seeing it as he thinks.

“How detailed were they? The Accords?” He asks, quietly. “Were we supposed to act after being given permission, or would we have a blanket permission to all countries who signed and then debrief? W— What kind of circumstances would we be allowed to intervene in? Was that described?”

“Initially, we would have to ask permission to enter a country to the panel. The panel would contact the government, and the government would give and answer."

“Sounds impractical. And time consuming.”

“It is.” Tony admits. “We had an issue with that strategy in Argentina. No casualties, thankfully, but a lot of property damage. The legal team took an alternative proposition to the UN after that – instead of asking for permission upfront, we should assume permission to cross the border of every signed country, and after the intervention, we would go through debrief and organization of the rescue and relief efforts; in joint action of Stark Relief Foundation and the country’s chosen institution.”

“Like a Schengen Agreement. But just for international entrance, not money.” Bruce compares, and Tony nods, pleased by the quick connection.

“And exclusive, just for active Avengers members. Why not? The EU does it, and it works fine. Ish. And it’s much easier to control the border crossing of 8 people than it is to the migration flow of 28 independent countries, that’s for sure.”

“That would be better.” Bruce agrees, leaning back, even though his leg keeps bouncing anxiously. “And the debrief?”

“Make a report, have a meeting. Assess damage, reach out to local response teams and make sure they have all resources they need to keep working after we leave – and establish a channel of contact, in case any following casualties reach out and require help.”

“Could it have been exploited? The document?” Bruce asks, staring right into Tony’s face, to make sure he knows that if he lie, Bruce will know.

Tony shoves his hands in his pockets, uneasy.

“Yes. Of course. Every document can.” He admits. “It could go out of control and they could demand that everyone sign it. Every superhero, every special agent that sympathizes with us. They could have asked personal information – and then used that information to chase us down. Ross could have used the excuse of tentative arrest to throw us in the Raft – which he did, not for long, but he did –, he could have also made our lives and every interaction with the UN hell, which I’m sure he would have – but…”

Tony looks up to the ceiling and blinks, blinks, blinks, staving off the emotion, struggling with the tight feeling in his throat.

“Nothing else should have mattered.” He says, and he means it. He means it with all his heart, with all his soul, with every piece of him that still cries, still hurts with the idea what this, all of this, could have been avoided if they had just trusted each other. “We should have stayed together.”

Bruce stays silent for a long time.

Tony has no strength to turn his gaze back to him.

“I can see how this could have turned against us… But I can see how necessary something like this was.” Bruce confesses, after a long, considerate pause. “I get it.”

“They were going to shut us down, Bruce.” Tony whispers, pained.

“The UN?”

“The people. They were going to desert us. After Lagos, people were dragging Wanda’s name through the mud all over the news, in protests. Saying we were attacking them and destroying their countries. People were afraid. How long until they were too afraid that we would have to shut it all down? And then, who would have protected the Earth?”

Not that he knows it would have gone better with all of them together. Maybe it wouldn’t. But maybe it would’ve. And that maybe will keep him up at night forever, will eat him away from the inside slowly but surely, and maybe he’ll never be at peace with it – maybe, if for a second time, for a second grand failure, Tony can’t get past through his hold ups with this long enough to fix everything.

And so he says, not to Bruce, but to himself, his voice barely a whisper:

“And if we don’t push through this now, who’s gonna avenge it?”

Because isn’t that the problem?

Isn’t that the whole problem?

(That they’ve got no other choice?)

Bruce is looking at him like he wants to cry. Like he’s hurting, and Tony’s hurting, and they can’t help each other. They can’t. Bruce can’t help Tony, because Tony needed to be helped two years ago, hell, maybe even one year ago, and now it’s too late. Now the Accords don’t even matter anymore, he realizes with a ruefully, humorless laugh. It was all for nothing. And fuck Tony, right, fuck him and everything that he tried to do to keep people happy and safe, because nothing mattered when Thanos came, all the bullshit he took from Ross and the council and the Legal Team and the UN itself for the past two years, everything the took upon himself to fix because Rhodey was injured, Vision was mourning, and Rogers wasn’t there, all of that was for nothing. And Bruce, who knows what its like to be feared better than anyone else, who knows how harmful and consuming fear can be, but who also knows what Ross is capable of and doesn’t trust him one bit – he can’t console or reprimand Tony, can’t agree or disagree, he can only hang on the edge and watch as the fallout of the fight he wasn’t here for destroys his former teammates, and know he cannot help.

And so they stand here, alone, together, something in between – and they both worry if it’s not too late, or if it is. They worry, and they cannot stop.

“Are we going to be able to fight this, Tony?” Bruce asks, nearly pleads; Pleads for reassurance, for hope, for anything – and he doesn’t mean their quest for answers, or for any sort of special space metal, or Thanos. He means them, this rift that only seems deeper and wider every time Tony dares to look at it, unable to step away from the border, but also unable to take the leap. “Can we make this team work?”

“We will.” Tony tells him.

Because it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?

They have to.

“What about you and Steve?”

(That is the question.)

(Isn’t it.)

“It won’t be a problem.” Tony says – and deep down, he doesn’t know if he’s lying or not. To Bruce, and to himself. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re fighting the same guy this time. We won’t have any time to fight each other.”

“And that’s it?” Bruce asks, sadly. “That’s all we’re gonna get?”

“I don’t know, Bruce. I don’t know if I have anything else left to give him.”

“Can you trust him?”

“In a fight? Yes. Sure.”

“And that’s all?”

(What else is left?)

“It’s all I care about now.”

Bruce pauses.

“I think he… Tony. You guys need to talk. Steve – he’s feeling really bad about it. He misses the team.”

“So do I.” Tony admits, and it feels like glass is stuck to his throat. “But it doesn’t change anything. He still would have done it. And I still would have done it. So in the end, we always end up here.

Here, in this fight.

Here, with no trust between them.

“We’ll fight, Bruce. We’ll fight and we’ll win. Don’t worry.”

“And then?”

(And then?)

“And then… The Accords won’t be a problem. I’ll retire. Rogers can do whatever he wants.”

“You will – Okay, but – And what’s gonna happen to them, Tony? What are you going to do about Steve?”

“Nothing.” Tony says. “I can’t do anything more to him than what I’ve already done.”

Notes:

This is it for Bruce for now! He'll still give his input on other matters as we go deeper into the conversations, but we're finally ready to move on to the next person - or people - on the list! Soon, we'll be revisiting Pepper; and will also be including Thor and Scott's arcs! And we'll also discuss some other difficult topics, so get ready for that.

Now, for another matter: Remember that gift fic I mentioned in the last chapter? You can vote for which prompt is going to be based on now! You can go here and pick your favorite; And I'll announce the winner next month when the next chapter comes out, so make sure to take a look when you have some time!

As always, thank you for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting; and until the next one <3

Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Notes:

Some endings are quiet.

They might sneak in on you. Or maybe not. Would you know, for sure?

Today is the day. I come with hammers and nails, to seal the fate of two people who, in another universe, could have made this work. That is the sad thing of the multiverse - sometimes, the one you're in is not the happy one. This one isn't. Not for these two. Not because I'm evil, or because I have no other option, but because I get it, and I'm doing it anyway. Tough choices, friends. I hope, that if nothing else, I can make justice to both of them, to who they are as individuals and what they believe in, and the reason why that's exactly the thing that's important; and why I feel like it's a mistake to pretend their relationship never happened because the story would have never been the same without her.

Pepper Potts, the final part. And all the hard-to-say words that follow. We need to close this door so the next one can open - and I don't mean to Steve; but to a discussion we desperately need to have, about what is truly pushing Tony forward at this point, and the issues I feel like many of us, Tony stans, have some problems talking about. I will not shy away from them, and neither should you. We're cracking the eggs to make the omelet. I told you once that Pepper means something to the story, that she represents a very important part of the very essence of the Tony Stark character in the MCU: Priorities, and Purpose. Remember that? Well, that's not the whole story. There's also one more thing that she represents, something very important that you've heard a lot about:

Compromise.

And all the times it works - and the times it doesn't.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Tony’s legs are shaking.

He only realizes it when he looks at them.

He should be feeling it, shouldn’t he? The fragility in his stance. A trembling, unsure support to his tired, weary body. But he’s not. It’s like it’s not his body at all. His hands are pressed against the shower wall tightly, supporting most of his weight, his fingers curling painfully as if they could dig into the tiles, nails too short to actually scratch and hurt, but enough that he can feel the push of the wall against them as he claws at it in random, restless movements, mindless of it. He can feel that. He also feels like it’s a little hard to breathe, like it used to be with the Arc Reactor.

Reduced lung capacity and a constant, rigid weight sitting on his sternum, stopping him from inhaling too deeply unless he wanted his chest and ribs hurting like his skin was pulling away or his muscles were being stretched past the limit. Familiar, horrifying sensation. But there’s nothing there anymore. His chest is clear. And yet.

And yet, he pulls in air, and it’s like it doesn’t fill him.

Everything that he pulls in – it just dissolves. Leaves him bare.

He feels like he has left something behind, down in the workshop. When his feet moved out, something that was supposed to follow didn’t.

And he feels like an empty husk, echoing in the spaces inside that give no reply.

The water is hot, almost scalding, but it hits nice against the back of his head and into his knotted, messy hair, down his stiff neck and trickling down his back. He almost doesn’t want to leave. He is not actually sure how long his shower takes, not really, but he’s vaguely aware that it most certainly goes on for too long, from the steam. The fogginess on the mirror. The air is warm, but the mist reminds him of cold; And he’s afraid that if he steps out, the chill will immediately seep back into his bones and never leave. He watches the stream go down his body to his legs, running down his calves and feet in jagged, trickling paths, and he wishes they could wash away the cold with them.

He steps out, eventually. He’s not sure when. He’s not sure knowing will make him feel better. Distantly, like it’s an old echo, one whose owner is long gone and now it’s just empty words sounding against damp walls, there’s a voice. A voice that feels like a knife.

(He was not supposed to take that long in the shower)

(He wasn’t—)

(They have a limited water supply.)

(He shouldn’t—)

(How much can he fuck up?)

(Why couldn’t he get out?)

(Why can’t he do anything right.)

It throbs low, the way an old wound does, or like a fresh one, numb beneath a thick, foggy layer of haziness and emptiness. Or exhaustion. He’s not sure. All the knows is that the walls are too bare, his skin is hot but he still feels cold, and that the silence is suffocating.

Pepper is not here.

Still.

She told him to come upstairs, he remembers, as he dries himself with a towel absentmindedly. He doesn’t know how long ago, he realizes, as he slips into comfortable sleeping clothes, worn out and faded by time and constant use, things he kept for no reason even as he moved out and bought new ones. She had been busy, he tells himself, as a way of comforting his racing heart, as he sits on the edge of the bed and stares at the floor, twisting his toes on the carpet, just to feel the soft scratch of it.

He’d gone downstairs to talk to her, after he left the workshop. He couldn’t have done anything else. He had a strong, nearly unstoppable urge of seeing her, of hearing her, not through the phone, so he’d know that she was okay, and she’d know he was okay. He had needed her to know he was still here for her, even if they had… separated, in a way. But not really. It was not really a separation – Tony didn’t want it to be. And he didn’t think she wanted it to be either. He needed to remind her, and himself, maybe, that they were still okay, as Tony and Pepper, and this… This division they were doing didn’t really mean anything.

Right?

He needed that.

He needed her to know that he cared. He couldn’t… he wouldn’t make the mistake of letting her think that he didn’t.

But here, in the privacy of his own thoughts, when she was still downstairs – when she had looked at him, eyes soft and crinkling at the edges, worry lines now just a little more visible than they used to be, the evidence of the years passed between them now displayed on her soft skin just like the scars on Tony’s body; And she caressed his hair and told him to come up first, that she’d be right there, and she still wasn’t –, here, there is a far more terrible thought consuming at the edges of Tony’s mind, like a starving animal gnawing at the bone, relentless until the very last bit it can get. The thought is ugly. It’s shameful.

Because he had.

Forgotten her.

He had forgotten about Pepper for a moment. Longer than a moment. Almost an entire day.

It’s not new. He has done it many times – and worse, to many people. It’s wrong of him, he knows, that something in his head doesn’t work quite right in the feelings department, but to have it happen is always shitty, no matter how many times it does. And it’s not even the first time he has done it to Pepper specifically, no. There had been several times when he’d been drunk – but also when he wasn’t. The Palladium thing, for one. The rough patch they went through when Tony created the Iron Legion, that only got worse with Ultron. The September Foundation, God.

The day at the park. When he left her there and got into Ebony Maw’s ship.

Tony has done this many, many times.

(You’d think he’d have learned, by now.)

But he doesn’t do it on purpose. He truly, truly loves her, it’s not a farce, he’s not lying – but the way his brain works sometimes, he doesn’t get it himself, and he doesn’t know how to stop. It’s that why they fight all the time? That Tony has these impulses he feels like he can’t contain, and Pepper can’t live with Tony doing this over and over again? It makes him feel like he’s the worst person alive – because what kind of selfish bastard forgets about his fiancée because of some shiny, sparkly magic books? What kind person is he, that he’d rather let this gap between them get wider and wider, that would purposefully spread it like he’s forcing it open with a crowbar, because he can’t step back and let the others do something and stay with her, like she asked him to?

If he thinks about it a little harder, he knows it’s not that simple. Under the cloud of negative feelings that surface unbidden to live right under his skin, he knows he couldn’t simply tap out of this even if he wanted to. This is not like Ultron, or the Accords, something other people could have dealt with without him, or avoided completely. This is bigger than any of them. This has already happened, and it’s too late to stop it, so the only option is to actively do something or lose. In this, he honestly has no choice, no matter how many times they have fought over these exact words. And despite Pepper’s insistence that Tony shouldn’t chase Thanos as a way to fix this – Tony knows, that deep inside, she understands.

She said so. And he believes her.

Because this is not just about Thanos. And she knows it too.

Tony is not gonna lie and say this is not about the kid. It is. It is about the kid. Along the desperation and sorrow, there is an ember of rage that refuses to cool inside his core, there is a wound that will never stop bleeding for as long as he doesn’t bring that kid back to the arms of his aunt, to Tony’s own shaky embrace, Goddamnit; Because he will not accept to live in a world where he lost the kid and everyone else just moved on. Even if he could make it work. Even if he could design the best, fastest air filters ever produced, even if he could avoid that millions would die of starvation or freezing or pollution or riots, even if he knew there was a way to rebuilt society after things calmed down – he wouldn’t do it.

Not when there’s a single chance that he might still get Peter back. He won’t settle for anything less.

And Pepper knows it. Peter never was to Pepper what he was to Tony, he knows, because they hardly knew each other. By the time the kid came around, Pepper had very efficiently removed herself from Tony’s Avenging business very much on purpose. Even if Pete was a nice kid – most of what Pepper knew of him came from Tony’s stories, nothing more. But she knew enough. More importantly, she knew Tony enough to know the real reason. And that’s all that comes down to it.

Pepper might love Tony – and she does. Tony believes she does. Almost in a way that makes him not believe, if that makes sense. It’s like…

Pepper has always been a force of nature, always been a tidal wave crashing into Tony’s life, and he’s so lucky she has given him any chance at all to love her back, to be hers, to let himself be vulnerable with. She has given him so much. And he knows it. He doesn’t take it for granted, at all. But he knows her, as she knows him, and they both know each other far too well to pretend this is about anything other than what it truly is. Just like Tony can’t stand the thought of not acting and not helping when he can, when he should, Pepper is also doing her best to keep all loose knots reigned in, in her own way. In the way she wishes it was enough. Maybe it will be. Maybe they will have no choice. Maybe, in a few days, or few weeks, or hell, maybe tomorrow, they will learn there is no way, there is no chance of bringing everyone back, and then – Then he’ll join her downstairs, with the SHIELD agents and Ross and Carter, he’ll go on recon and rescue, he’ll rack his brains for the best designs he can possibly produce for survival measure necessary, and he’s gonna put all his back and heart into it, with no questions asked. He’ll do whatever she asks him to, he’ll follow her lead, as he does in SI, as he does outside of the walls of this Compound, when he trusts her to be his CEO, his partner, his friend. His safe place. If there is no other way, he’ll do it.

But until then.

Until then, the room is cold. He’s alone. She’s downstairs, finishing her report from Agent Carter, or Agent Ross, or maybe something else. He’s not sure. He was too keyed up, too rattled to fully grasp what she’d been doing when he finally saw her on the hangar after so many hours of simply… not thinking of her. Of long, excruciating moments of fearing she might’ve thought he didn’t care about her. He came up because she assured him it was fine, and he trusted her, he left her to finish her job because the trusted she’d come to him soon and they’d… talk, maybe, or just sleep. Just hold each other. He’d have taken anything. He simply trusted her, and waited, even if the room is cold, even if it’s too empty without her.

He trusts that everything is okay. If not with the world, with them.

He can only hope it is.

(But the room is empty.)

(And yet...)

He scoots back, and lays on the pillows, just so he can rest a little, and while he waits, he doesn’t realize he’s falling asleep before it’s too late.

He falls asleep alone for the first time in two years.

It feels like betrayal that it’s as peaceful as it is.

 

(If he had known)

(He’d have stayed awake)

 

 

 

(If he had known)

 

 

 

The first thing he feels is the tickling sensation in his chest.

Right over his heart.

He doesn’t startle. The housing case for the nanoparticles is on top of the nightstand, perfectly close to his reach, but thought of picking it up doesn’t even occur to him. Not because he’s over whatever leftover trauma might be hiding in the deep crevices of his mind, because he isn’t, and he’s adult enough to admit it – but because he’s tired, and the touch is gentle, almost fleeting, and warm; And Tony recognizes the weight and the shape of the body fitted against his easily, the head resting on his shoulder and the leg over his, the familiar press of her arm on top of him and the touch of her body against his ribs and hip, like they’re puzzle pieces slotting together. The tickle comes from her fingers, as they barely brush against the shape of the circular scar on his sternum, slightly raised tissue barely making a bump on the fabric of his faded T-shirt, her nails teasing sensation here and there on accident, because they’re too big and the nail polished is all chipped off. But the motion is elegant and soft, just like Tony always thinks of her.

He knows how to recognize her. He’s been waking up next to her for years.

He’s used to feel her pressed against him like this after they’ve had sex. They don’t usually sleep in this position, because Tony got used to laying on his side to be able to sleep, the press of the case of the Reactor too heavy and too constricting for him to fall asleep on his back. To this day, it’s rare that he can sleep in any other position. The exhaustion really did him in, he realizes. She slotted herself against him in the very position she found him in, like she always did – and it’s very telling of how tired he was, that he didn’t turn during the night and he didn’t wake up at all as she settled against him.

A ridiculous, softer, naïve part of him thinks it’s emotional, how much he trusts her, and it kind of makes his throat feel a little tight; But the ache in his knees and back still is a very real reminder of the effects of the previous day, of the toll this is taking on him, the glaring consequences of pushing his body and mind to the limit – past the limit – to meet the deadline of their final fate.

Her touch is kind. She’s not asleep.

She doesn’t look up when he looks down.

He presses a kiss into her hair, missing the faint fruity scent of her favorite shampoo, but he noses the strands anyway, for their softness and the tenderness of the gesture, to caress her as she is caressing him, unwilling to destroy this sheen, fragile bubble of peace he seems to have woken up to.

“M’sorry.” He says, words hoarse. “Didn’t mean to sleep.”

“You were tired.” Pepper replies, and her voice is just as rough with sleep, cracking at the edges; But she sounds like she’s been awake for a while, slurring way less than him. “It’s okay. I was tired too.”

She still is. He can hear it.

He curls his limp arm around her, managing to only brush his fingers on her bicep in his position, because he refuses to have her move her head in any way. He wonders, for a second, if from where she’s laying, she can hear his heart.

(If she can feel the cold beneath his skin.)

“Did you get any sleep?”

“I did.” Pepper sighs, and rubs her cheek against his skin for a minuscule moment. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah.” Tony says, and it comes off a bit muffled, lips pressed against her head. “Better now that you’re here.”

“You didn’t even stir when I got into bed last night.”

“It’s weird, huh.” Tony says, but it’s not joking. Not quite. Just slightly amused. “Guess I just really missed having some sleep.”

She hums, half in agreement, half in thoughtfulness, and says nothing. The silence stretches lazily between them, like syrup dripping down sluggish and patient, and Tony loses himself in repetitive motions up and down her arm, as the pad of her middle finger strokes a particularly bumpy part of the scar, the ridge of the texture guiding her caress purposefully, and he sighs, not quite content, but something that almost could be.

It’s empty conversation, sort of – and at the same time, it’s not. They’ve done this a few times before too – when the night was rough, and the morning gentle, but not soothing enough. It just feels comforting. The lack of expectations of the very idea of getting up and facing the day, the lack of expectations between them even; No pressure to be something other than they’re not right now. They’re tired, and it’s okay. They’re lonely, and it’s okay. It’s okay, for a few moments, to just hold each other and get reacquainted with the feeling of sharing body heat, to hide under the covers and just be, like there’s no world outside. Tony is not thinking if there’s any hidden meaning to her words, or her caress on his chest, or anything else. He doesn’t have to. In these moments, they are not being guided by questions or secretive intentions, just the desire of having the other close…

And just for this moment, they let it be enough.

When he’s like this, he likes to caress her hair. In his daily life, Tony’s touches are reserved for metal and iron, for electricity and tools hard-edged and cold, precise and sometimes lethal; In contrast, the touch of her hair is soft like a cloud, delicate and pretty, so incredibly comforting to run fingers through and massage the scalp. Tony had always loved to cup her waist or her nape, to give a soothing squeeze into her skin, hoping he can say, without any words, that he’s there for her. To give her warmth. He has always preferred to give her affection in less than direct ways. In hidden gestures, in small actions – because when he does something purposefully visible, he tends not to know when to stop. The giant bunny incident still makes him embarrassed sometimes. So this – this moment… it feels like home.

Like very few things feel like these days.

Home is very fragile, though. Home is a sheer veil placed haphazardly over the broken furniture, to hopefully keep the dust and debris away from the reach of bystanders and third parties. Like a construction site, that promises great things to come but it is, still, just the ruins of something that is being taken apart piece by piece. Tony has never feared construction – it would be nonsensical to, as an engineer. He sees it as an improvement. Sometimes you do need to break down some walls or maybe something even bigger to create something better on top of it – but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit that sometimes, just sometimes – he wishes home was… complete. That the work was done, that it was all done, and they could just enjoy it. That there was no struggle to overcome anymore and they could just love and be.

Home is fragile, still. They are always breaking things down and putting things up again. Over and over.

And sometimes, the world outside barges in, and they can’t keep it out.

Home is cold, this morning. Cold, everywhere but in this bed.

(And sometimes, within.)

“How are you guys doing?” Pepper asks, breaking the silence – and even though her words are gentle and curious, not at all ill-intentioned, Tony still feels a rush of breath escape his lungs in a sigh, an inkling of a bad feeling rearing up its head over his shoulder, small, quiet, but present.

The bubble of peace around them is already stretched thin, then. It’s not meant to last.

How could it?

When the world outside refuses to stay outside?

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking that?” Tony asks back, moving his face away from her head so she can adjust her position and look up at him. “You were the one organizing entire teams of SHIELD agents down there.”

Pepper makes a low hum, thoughtful. “They are surprisingly obedient.” She says, and there’s even a small, shy smile at the corner of her mouth, some mirth dancing in her eyes. “Wasn’t expecting that. It was alright.”

Her easy reply makes him feel vulnerable, soft. “You didn’t have any trouble?”

She takes in a deep breath and looks up, as if gathering her thoughts. “Well, the R&D boys are… concerned. I gave them access to all workspaces and they’re working hard, but they’re worried they’re not gonna be fast enough with the filters.”

(They won’t.)

Bruce has already given him the answer to that question.

“Do they have everything they need?” Tony says worriedly, frowning. “I could help—”

“You’re already doing far more than you should be doing, Tony.” Pepper says, and her tone does have some light reprehension to it, though it’s not meant to sting. It’s just deep, deep concern, so familiar it aches. “You should be in bed rest, because you got stabbed, had surgery, and not once you stopped to recover from that.”

“Wouldn’t feel right to lay on a bed while everyone else works.”

Pepper stops, and looks at him for a moment. Her eyes are not judging, but in her pause, Tony sees the rush of something flick through her gaze, an emotion Tony fears to identify. “No, it wouldn’t.”, she says, and it’s surprisingly gentle.

It’s not reprehension, but it’s also not easy admittance – and it’s also not something in between. It sounds a little distant, like the words sink into her head in a place much deeper than they should go, and she’s following them down a specific path that Tony can’t reach from the outside. A place only for her, where she keeps the words and thoughts she doesn’t say out loud. Tony, who is always in awe of her, who is in a constant state of knowing exactly how she reacts and what she thinks and being surprised by it every single time, wonders what is going on in her mind.

“What about the plan?” She asks, her voice neutral. It’s not much different from the tone she uses when they casually discuss work when they get home, as a mere recollection of the facts of the day, common curiosity and interest. No malice in it.

(And yet.)

The peeking, ugly thing over Tony’s shoulder comes up a little closer, a little more noticeable.

(And yet.)

Tony lets out a deep breath, shaking his head a little. “It’s going well. Maybe. I’m not sure.”

And he’s really not. It feels like they’re progressing, but he’s not really sure they are. It’s hard to know, when he has no visible, tangible goal to reach, not as far as the information they can get on the Stones go. They have no idea how much information there actually is out there – if there’s any useful information at all. When it’ll be enough? How much information is enough to justify moving on to the next step – attack? Tony knows what he’d like to get – confirmation; But is that even possible? Can he justify this wild chase to her as anything other than a deep gut feeling of an injustice that will rob him of peace until it’s fixed? Can he put this into any word that it will be of any comfort, for her and for himself?

He doesn’t know.

“Do you think it’s really possible?” Pepper asks, in a whisper. “To get them back? Bring everyone back?”

“I hope it is.” Tony says, and the honesty tastes sour in his tongue. “We’re doing all we can. It’s our best bet—”

He stops, because he fears what the words that almost came tumbling out of his mouth might cause. It wouldn’t be the first time that the way Tony phrases this idea causes distress between them, his failing to convey correctly the mess of feelings and intentions in his chest pushing Pepper into a frantic state of frustration and concern. This is how it always starts.

The way Pepper stops and waits for him to continue says a lot about how far they’ve come in this relationship. Years ago, she would have interrupted him. She had, before. Her distress would be far closer to her skin, much easier to set off, the mounting concern for hers and Tony’s safety unfamiliar and unclear though the first couple of years, making every disagreement like it was the end of the world itself. But now it isn’t. It helps, he knows, that they’ve had more talks about this than perhaps about anything else, except for Stark Industries-related subjects. It helps, that they’re older, that they don’t have some misconceptions about each other anymore, and that this… has just become one thing they are both aware is a part of their lives now. Has been, since Tony claimed the suit in front of the public. Maybe even before then.

Since Afghanistan itself, probably.

It says a lot.

He takes a breath, and rephrases, carefully. Tries to say it the best as he can.

“I think—” He stresses, delicately. “That even if it’s not the safest option, it still is the best option. Because if it works… We’re going to be sparing a lot of people a lot of unnecessary pain. Yes, it could work if we did it differently and took a longer route – but that would have really bad consequences and we don’t even know if it would be effective either. At this point, everything is just a gamble.”

She looks at him. He looks at her.

He knows some of what he’s trying to say is getting to her – he just doesn’t know how much.

He knows she’s not asking what she’s asking. Or better – she is, but not only that. There’s something she’s reaching for, a specific answer out of him that he has no idea what it is, and it makes him nervous to think he could be saying something wrong. The bubble, the thin frail sheet of imaginary protection around them stretches and pulls taut like a piece of cheap plastic, and Tony desperately hopes it won’t rip.

“If we’re gonna bet – we might as well bet on the biggest prize. The one where – no one gets hurt.”

“You could get hurt. Any of you could get hurt.” Pepper points out, not accusingly, just factual.

“It’s still our best bet.” Tony insists, gently. “Why bet two billion chips when you could just bet one and take the same prize?”

Pepper looks down, her lashes looking way longer from the angle he’s seeing them, and she makes another nonsensical pattern on his chest before saying, in a soft, sad voice, “I never liked gambling.”

“Me neither.” Tony says, and that is, by many means, not true – but it’s true for the only meaning that matters at this moment. “But sometimes it’s all we can do.”

She doesn’t say anything. It’s not uncommon either – sometimes, when this discussion doesn’t flare into desperation and anger, it’s filled with long silences and awkward pauses, when words fail to connect into comprehensible meaning, hearts too raw and minds too full of white noise for them to be able to be honest without feeling like they’re pulling teeth at every sentence they utter at each other. That, and the odd feeling of being exposed by just laying here, having just woken up, still tired, still in each other’s arms – it’s hard, to keep the vulnerability out of the bed, the place where it always feels like all the masks and walls just dissolve away. Beds have been places for masks as disguises for Tony for many years before, to perform an act that wasn’t truly him – now, he has forgotten how to keep his shields up while in it, and it’s too late to bring them back now.

He starts to worry. Really worry. Her silence is not unusual, and the gentleness of her touch and the way she keeps close – none of it speaks of impending doom, and yet. Tony feels like something is wrong. Something is wrong, and he doesn’t know what. Irrationally, he thinks the mere act of catching him already asleep must have clicked something on her mind, even though Tony knows he was just asleep, for fuck sake, what could have he possibly done by just being asleep? He tries to rationalize it, but he has to stop himself, before his assumptions leave the realm of normal possibilities and plummet straight into catastrophizing. So he’s lost. He’s lost, and he hates it, and he squeezes her tighter in a meek effort of conveying his feelings without actually having to say them out loud, fearing that bringing them to light might be even worse than let them live under his skin.

“Pep.” He calls, and his voice is pleading. “I’m sorry for doing this.”

Pepper looks at him like she’s confused. “Sorry about what?”

“I’m just… Sorry.” Tony hesitates. “I know it’s scary. I know it might seem unnecessary. But it isn’t.”

“You know that’s not what I worry about—”

“I know.” Tony interrupts, softly. “And honey, I’m telling you it isn’t that. I promise. I know… I know what you’re worried about. And you have a point. You do. But that’s not it.”

Tony knows what she’s worried about. He’s not stupid. And even if it was – he wouldn’t have to guess, because they’ve talked about this explicitly before. Many times.

So, so many.

There were times, like when they took a break right after the Ultron attack, that the journals and papers got the whiff of their troubled relationship and were very quick to assume things about their personal life. It’s just the kind of shitty thing the press does, Tony bitterly thinks. They have always done this, to him and to her, and to them, as a couple. Like it’s not bad enough to have your own insecurities – to have other people telling you, telling the world, what is wrong with your relationship when you’re already doubting it is the worst thing that can happen.

And God, had they assumed. Some assumed Pepper had gotten pregnant and Tony freaked out and broke up with her. The same assholes who said Tony made her CEO to get over the guilt of sleeping with an employee, and that it wouldn’t last. Tony has no respect for those bastards. Some said Pepper had finally seen reason and realized how dangerous Tony was, how evil his tech could be and granted – Tony thought so too, sometimes. These ones always got under his skin a little. Because they have a point. What he does is dangerous, and the sheer amount of times he has put her in a bad situation just because he couldn’t let the suit go is more than enough proof of that. So it grates, a little. It stings, even though he doesn’t admit out loud.

Some of them, though. Some of them hit right on the nail.

He still remembers. He’d been sitting in the dark in his living room at the Tower, nursing a half-empty glass of whisky while she’d been away in Dublin for a week-long discussion with some investors. The common floor was still full of glass and broken furniture, from when Ultron’s first attempt of an attack at them had trashed their after-party glow and disrupted the only relief Tony had in her absence. There was no JARVIS to fill the silence anymore. FRIDAY wasn’t the same. So he sat there and drank, alone, when the news came in, and in the middle of a report of what had just transpired in Sokovia mere days before, one of the commenters, with an incredibly sharp sense, had mentioned that Pepper Potts had not been in the Avengers Tower at the moment of the attack, and returned briefly to the States after Sokovia only to depart back to Europe mere four days after. We wonder, he had said, with so much accusation in his voice that there was no wonder to it, no speculation, just firm, unwavering conviction, if the toll of balancing Tony Stark’s company and Tony Stark’s dangerous personal life is finally catching up to Miss Potts, and their relationship is suffering from it.

We wonder.

There’s no wondering to it, though, is there?

That’s exactly what it is.

Tony does not resent her for being worried about him. He’s not that much of a hypocrite. How could he, when he understands perfectly what it’s like to be worried for the safety of the person you love, as you’re hopeless to help them? God, Tony still quakes at the thought of how it felt to see her with Extremis coursing through her veins while he was pathetically trapped in a bed frame with zip-ties on his wrists. What the void in him felt like when he watched her fall and thought she’d died. He knows that’s what she felt like when Tony flew the nuke through the wormhole. Or like when Vanko came to him in Monaco, or Ultron, or Thanos. That’s what she always feels.

Though she never was and never will be helpless or dependent on him, the very terrible comparison to a restless soldier and his poor, grieving wife is not something he can miss. Tony is the bastard that keeps chasing war like it’s his only purpose in life, guided by his feelings of inadequacy and the rumbling need to right the wrongs he has long ago committed and will never be fully able to atone for, so eager to strap himself to the pole and beg for punishment when all Pepper wanted was for him to forgive himself. He wanted him to believe he had more to live for than the obligation to make others believe he’s good, because he is, and the only person who doesn’t believe it is him, she exasperatedly claims. She says he has nothing to prove. And it’s true – and at the same time, it isn’t, and Tony can’t explain it properly to himself, much less to her or Rhodey, or anyone else.

He has been in darker places. In darker thoughts. It’s true. It’s true that in the past, the desire to atone and the need to self-destruct had walked hand in hand from him, when the suit had been a shell to protect him from the own villain within, but Tony—

Tony likes to believe he’s gotten better at that.

He stopped drinking. His nightmares are… rare and barely bother him at all anymore. The anxiety attacks, well… They’ve gotten better. Somewhat. But he’s better. He stepped out from active duty, as he knew she wanted, he started exercising, eating healthier, trying to be nicer to his body.

His mind is another matter, but he had to start somewhere. And he did. He did it for her. To let her rest easy at night.

Pepper had always thought more of Tony than Tony thought of himself.

He loves her. Loves her for it.

She’s so good to him.

(He’s so wrong for her.)

So that’s not it. It’s not. He’s not trying to purposefully put himself in danger this time.

This is not what this is about.

This is just… It’s just…

(Him trying to fix it.)

He has to.

(He has to fix it.)

Pepper watches as he stops there, eyes wide and begging, face surely frantic in its nearly childish desire to avoid this conflict in its entirety – hoping, with all his being, that his reaction will be enough proof to her that he truly means what he’s saying. This is not an elaborate plot to hurt himself, physically or mentally. It’s not. And he’s not doing this recklessly. The very impulse of trying to figure out the Stones before finding Thanos and getting the Gauntlet from him is the very evidence of how much thought he’s putting into this. This is not recklessness, please, she has to see that.

He squeezes her a little in his arms.

He promises. That’s not it. He promises.

She takes in a steady breath, very calculated, before she says, softly. “I think we need to talk.”

Tony stiffens in her embrace.

(Fuck.)

(Fuck.)

“Do we?” He asks, desolately, fearfully wishing his worst fears are just that – fears, and not actually what is happing. That he might be getting too ahead of himself, that it could be nothing, even though—

Even though—

“You don’t think so?” She asks in a whisper.

“I don’t know—” Tony chokes. “I don’t know if I like where this conversation might go.”

“Does that mean we don’t need to have it?”

“I don’t know.”

Pepper pushes back and leaves the circle of Tony’s arms, his body immediately feeling cold when her heat leaves, and he has a brief moment of irrational panic in which he almost grabs her and brings her back, scared of what might happen if he lets her go. But he doesn’t, because she doesn’t go far. She just… scoots back. To look at him. He feels nonsensically empty as she leaves, like she’s just left the room again, like he’s stranded in outer space again, with only ruins and dust to fill the empty spaces inside, home closing in on itself like it’s collapsing on unsteady bones and beams.

The bubble bursts, silent, undetected. It’s drowned by the sound of the blood roaring in Tony’s ears.

“Tony.” She says, “I know we haven’t dealt with this in the best way possible in the past.”

“I know. Honey, I know.” Tony pushes himself straighter and sits up, reaching quickly to grab her hand in his own and swipe a gentle caress across her knuckles. “But we’ve been trying, right?”

“Yeah, we have.” Pepper admits, kindly, and her next words are a whisper. “But is it enough?”

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no.

Wait, wait.

“It can be. I think it can. If you want to. If we try.” Tony says, a little too frantically.

“We tried, Tony. We’ve been trying a lot.”

“These past two years…” Tony coughs. “They were… a bit rough, I admit it, not my finest moments, but I thought – I thought we’d been doing good?”

“We were.” Pepper says, and it’s so understanding, so gentle, it hurts like a gunshot. “Until the spaceship came out from the sky.”

Oh, no.

No, no, no.

Oh, God, please, no.

Tony feels the burning in his eyes before he can stop it. He pouts and presses his lips together, in a frail effort to keep any wobbly words from spewing out carelessly, his head nodding along not in true confirmation, but just in an unconscious, desperate instinct to appease the wave of terrible, suffocating guilt that washes over him, so familiar, always so crushing.

(Calm down.)

(Calm down.)

(He can’t talk to her if he doesn’t—)

(Calm down.)

He knows it’s bad. He knows – he knows. He promised to tap out and he didn’t. He promised to stay away and he couldn’t. He knows. He’s sorry. He said that. And he can promise he’ll never do it again – but he can’t, because he’s doing it right now, every day –, he can promise it’ll be the last time – but he won’t, because he can’t know for sure. Every time she thinks it’ll be the last, and it never is. Every time, he says he’ll stop, but he never does.

He knows it’s bad but he can’t—

“I’m not blaming you.” Pepper says, hastily, grabbing his hands and wrists firmly, trying to force him to focus. “Tony, listen to me. This is not about blame.”

“Didn’t say it was.” Tony says, lifelessly.

“Well, you didn’t say it, but you really think I can’t tell what you’re thinking when you have that look on your face?” He looks down, and she leans forward to she can still look in his eyes even though he’s trying to escape, undeterred. “Hey. Listen. I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming anybody.”

She doesn’t have to.

Tony is blaming himself enough for the both of them.

“But it still kind of is, isn’t it?” Tony gives her a shaky, twitchy sad smile. “It is my fault.”

He can’t believe – He can’t – He can’t believe this is happening. God, he almost wants to laugh. To laugh, laugh nervously and broken, laugh until the high pitched hiccups of joy are loud enough that he can disguise the wet, choked up feeling in his nose and throat as the lack of air, to disguise the tears that spring in his eyes as a joke, as a folly, as something that doesn’t hurt – but it does. It hurts so – God, he’s done it, this is fucking unbelievable.

How many times is it? Four? Five? Breakup number five, look at that. What a joy. He’s – Fucking dammit, why can’t do this, this one thing, why can’t he. How can his heart still hurt so fucking much after so many times – he almost expects it to be used to it now. Right? It should be. It should be because Tony is doing this again, he’s sitting there and having all hope of making the only meaningful romantic relationship he has ever had, with the only woman he has ever truly loved, being crushed to pieces again because – because—

“Tony.” Pepper looks at him with wide eyes, blue filled with sadness and concern, the scrunch of her brows so deep it creases lines into her forehead in a way that Tony never wanted to see. She’s so pale her freckles have disappeared into the pallor, the grey light of the days robbing everything, even her glow.

Tony drinks in the sight of her anyway. He does it like a starving man, like he knows it’s the last chance he’ll ever get, because this is how it feels. It’s how it feels every time.

Every time one of them starts to let go of the rope. Every time one of them takes the first step back.

(If he had known.)

(He’d stayed awake.)

(If he had known.)

(He should have stayed awake.)

“Tony.” Pepper repeats, trying to get him to listen, in that tone that makes his name sound like a whole sentence.

Breathy T. Long O. Small N. Soft Y.

Tony. An entire world of unspoken feelings in a simple word.

Tony looks at her. Stares.

Please.

Pepper… please.

“I’m going to say something that’s very personal and very difficult for me and I need you to listen and not interrupt me for a couple of seconds, okay?” She says, dropping her gaze, as she also brushes a soft touch against Tony’s skin, trying to settle him, as she can probably feel the way he’s frozen still while trying not to tremble. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, because I know how hard it is for us when we fight about this, but – I really feel like I should say it, okay? I don’t want you to – to assume the worst and then we get angry at each other and we can’t talk. I can’t do that. So I need you to listen, please.”

Tony nods. There’s nothing he can say. He doesn’t even think he’d be able to speak if he had any words.

“I never—” Pepper says, and stops. For a second, it sounds like she’s trying not to choke too. “I never, ever, had a problem with you being a hero.”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut. Her grip on his wrist tightens, almost to the point of being painful.

“I know it didn’t always seem like it. I wasn’t always the best at saying what I meant, and getting used to it in the first years… It was tough.” Pepper says in a rush, breath harsh and winded. It sounds like it hurts her too. “But I did say things I didn’t mean, or I didn’t mean exactly like I said them, and I’m sorry for that. We both… We both had too much on our plates, and we didn’t always know how to talk to each other and that’s… partially my fault, too.”

Tony thinks of the first years into their relationship, how bright and intense everything had felt, the years and years of pining for each other and still keeping a professional barrier between them mounting so many strong feelings behind it that, when the wall finally broke, the wave that came in felt just like being stepping into the sun after decades in the dark. Overwhelming, extreme, and overcoming. How they hadn’t known, exactly, how to transition from one thing to the other. It took work. She had been amazing – and Tony kind of wants to tell her that, it was not her fault, she tried so hard – but she said not to interrupt – and Tony – Tony knows what she means.

He thinks of the night that Mark 42 responded to his distress in his sleep and attacked Pepper, and she left – and the argument they had over it not too soon after.

He knows what she means.

They both had said… Or haven’t said a lot of things to each other.

Tony’s chest feels very, very heavy all of a sudden.

(Cold.)

“But it was never about you wanting to be a hero.” Pepper clarifies, placing a hand on his chest, over his heart, delicate. It hurts, it physically hurts, the way it heaves with a strong punch of shame and despair, as she lays her touch so softly and she has no idea what’s beneath. “You were always a hero, Tony. Always. To the company, to Rhodey, to me. Even before Iron Man.”

Tony wants to say something, he wants to say—

But she laughs, small and breathy, through her nose, and he stops, watching as her eyes gleam, fond and sad, for the briefest of moments, before she says:

“I wouldn’t have tried to kiss you at the Firefighters Fundraiser years ago if you weren’t.”

Tony’s heart squeezes so tight he thinks he might be having a heart attack.

(She’s not even gone yet and he already misses her.)

(Yet.)

 

(Yet.)

 

I tried to kiss you.”, he counters, mutedly.

Pepper shrugs, smiling a little. “I tried to kiss you too.”

“And I left you there.” Tony points out, with a humorless laugh, dripping in self-deprecation.

“Yeah, you did.” She concedes, but there’s no bitterness to it. “But I got my drink in the end, so it’s okay.”

“With extra olives?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how, because he wasn’t there. He imagines Pepper inside the gala, alone, beautiful in that blue dress, like a work of art made living under the soft lights, and he thinks of her, waiting worriedly for him when he never came back, taking off back to the workshop after Obie – Stane – admitted to sinking a knife into his back when he wasn’t looking.

He must have gotten down and headed to the bar to ask for him. The waiter must have given her the he drinks.

He wonders how long she stayed there, waiting for him.

He wonders if she drank both of them.

“You never fooled me, Tony. You were a very good actor – you could fool a lot of people. But never me.” Pepper says; And isn’t that true? Isn’t that the biggest truth of all? “You never were the soulless businessman people wanted you to be.”

No, he wasn’t. He never was. He tried to be, but he’s too soft.

“Iron Man is just… another way for you to do what I always knew you were going to do. You were trying to change the world. You still are.” Pepper says, fondly, and cups his neck to run a thumb over his jaw, where the beard grows unkempt and wild, black and gray and probably scratching her soft skin. “And I will never blame you for it.”

She won’t – but that won’t stop being the reason why they keep falling apart. It’s no matter if she won’t blame him – if the fact is that it is, at the end of the day, Tony’s inability to step down that causes her to leave every single time.

“I’ll retire.” He says, hopelessly, interrupting even though she asked him not to – but the worlds keep bubbling in this tongue, pushing forward desperately as if they could make any difference if he said them faster, like he could cut her train of thought before it reached the dreadful, heartbreaking conclusion that awaited at the end. “After this. I’ll be done. For good. I will never use the suit again.”

Pepper stops, and in her hesitation, Tony sees more sadness than he thought was possible to convey in one single pause. “I’m not asking you to do that, Tony.”

“But wouldn’t that fix things? For us?” Tony looks at her with pleading eyes, desperate – for anything, anything that could solve this before its too late, before any of them can say any words they can’t take back. He’s willing to do it. There’s almost nothing that he wouldn’t be willing to do to keep her, even the suit. “There would be no danger. You wouldn’t have to worry if I’ll come back if I’ll always be there. I can save the world in other ways.”

“But not yet.”

“Not yet.” Tony agrees, and it hurts in his throat like he’s screaming. “But soon.”

“And would you be able to rest?”

“I would.” Tony hastily says, nevermind if it’s actually true or not. He’d make it true. He could. He’s a genius, he’ll figure a way to keep himself busy. There are other ways to be useful to the next generation of heroes without actually going out to fight. Tony is getting old anyway. Retirement is not a bad idea. He would do it – for her. He’d do it. “We settle down, in a farm, somewhere, away from everything. Just me and you. No one else. No suits.”

“It’s not the suit, Tony.” Pepper argues. “You’ll always be a hero – you’ll always want to be a hero. Not because of fame, or glory, or anything – but because you care. You care so much.

“I care about you.” Tony insists, tragically, because how else can he make her see?

“I know. And I care about you too.”

She does. She does, she does, so much, so much more than he deserves. He can’t believe this. He can’t believe they’re going through this again, that the ground is giving away beneath their feet one more time and he has no way of grasping for a hold before it crumbles, no escape.

“But I think—" Pepper falters, her eyes lowering to the covers hesitantly, her fingers trembling around his wrist where she holds him like a lifeline. His pulse hammers like the wings of a hummingbird beneath the pad of her thumb, heart crying in agony with every beat, cheeks burning hot with shame and a dark pit of wrongness eating his stomach like a blackhole. “I think we need to be real about this thing we can’t seem to fix.”

Tony’s breath shutters.

(They can’t fix this.)

(Tony can fix so many things.)

(But never this.)

“I love you.” Pepper says, and it’s raw. Raw and open and bleeding, like the two of them. Like the spear going through his stomach to leave him hollow again. “I love you, Tony. But I don’t want you to lose a piece of yourself because of what you think I need.”

“I don’t need to be Iron Man.” Tony mutters, and he means it. He truly, from his very soul, he means it. He might not have meant it before, years ago, but he definitely knows now. He’s learned better. The suit is not what he needs. He can give it up, if that’s what she needs. “I can stop. After this, I can stop.”

Pepper licks her lips, a nervous gesture, and says, “I can’t.”

(Fuck.)

 

She can’t—

 

They—

 

(Fuck.)

 

Tony looks up. She looks back.

It’s hard to hold back tears when he sees her eyes full of them too.

 

(Don’t cry.)

 

(Please, please.)

 

(Don’t cry, Pepper.)

 

(God, fuck.)

 

(Fuck.)

 

“I will always worry. And you will always fight. And we can’t stand this for much longer.” Pepper whispers, voice cracking, even as she gives a small smile and holds his face between her hands two swipe away a tear that escapes Tony’s eyes unbidden. “You are not wrong. If you think your way is the best way to save the world, I believe you, and if you say you mean it, that it’s not you just looking for revenge, I believe you. But in the end, I always worry.”

He doesn’t want her to worry. He doesn’t want to burden her with the agonizing wait and uncertainty of his life or death anymore, he wants to say he’ll stop, right now, but he can’t. He’ll stop soon, he’ll stop after, but not now.

(Lie.)

(He can’t.)

(Lie, or you’ll lose her.)

(He can’t fool her.)

(It’s not fair.)

(She knows he can’t stop now.)

(The world depends on it this time.)

(It’s not fair.)

But the world depends on it every time. It’s not just this once, is it? It’s every time. Every time, every time something happens, the mere inkling of fear that it could be the last has Tony moving faster than Pepper’s hands can hold him, beyond all limits or regards, to protect other lives despite his own. And she will always worry. When he’s fighting, she’ll worry he won’t come home, and if he’s home, she’ll always worry when he’ll be fighting next. Even if he says he won’t. Can he really make that promise?

What if there’s something out there even worse than Thanos? It rankles just to think about it, terrifying and unnerving, that there might be something out there even worse than this hell on earth – but what if? That’s Tony's entire state of mind. What if?

What if?

What then.

“I’d say I’d put on the armor and follow you to the fight, but I know that wouldn’t fix anything. If not this fight, there will always be the next. And I can’t use the suit like you do. It was never my… my way of doing things.”

“You’re as much as a hero as I am.” Tony mellowly says. “You saved me.”

“I didn’t save you, Tony. I just was there for you when I could.” Pepper tilts her head, crows feet wrinkling at the corner of her eyes so beautifully when she gives him an awkward smile, and he loves her so much it hurts. “But I don’t know if I can anymore.”

He tries to speak, but it comes out as a sob. He bites his lip, ashamed of the sound, and he almost breaks skin with how hard his teeth sink into it, nearly drawing blood. He wouldn’t stand to feel the coppery taste on his tongue again right now.

“What happened?” Tony asks, nearly begging. “What changed?”

“Nothing changed.” Pepper lowly admits. “I just… I’ve just been thinking.”

She’s been thinking.

She’s been thinking about this.

About letting go of them.

(Since when.)

(What happened.)

(What did he do.)

“Did you—” Tony stops, because he needs to breathe, there’s no air in his lungs and he needs to breathe, but it hurts to inhale and it hurts to speak, and his nose and throat feel like they’re full of water and snot and he hates it, he hates it, God. “Did you want – this? Before?”

“No.” Pepper hastily says. “No, I wanted – I wanted it to work, Tony. I swear. I wanted it so bad.”

“Then why can’t we?” Tony tries. “Can’t we try?”

“We tried.” Pepper cries, brokenhearted. “We tried. I just – I don’t think I can do this anymore, Tony.”

 

(She can’t.)

(She can’t put up with him anymore.)

 

“I want you to try it your way. I know how much it means to you. Maybe more than you can explain.” She says, but Tony is only half listening. A tear manages to escape, and he sniffs, loud, and it feels like hell. “I don’t want you to do something just because you think that’s what I want. We can’t get to a point where you just do something because you think it’s gonna make me happy.”

“And what if I want to? Huh?” Tony snaps, blinking rapidly to try and disperse the tears that cloud his vision, head going straight up to look right into her eyes, almost startlingly, despair bleeding into every sound that stutters and wobbles past his trembling lips. “What if I tell you – if I tell you that having you, here, with me, is the only thing keeping me sane, and that I can’t—”

He stops, looks up, and blinks. Blinks. Blinks.

(Don’t cry, don’t cry.)

(Don’t you fucking cry.)

“I don’t want you to leave.” Tony admits, like it’s being dragged out of him, like it’s not something he should say out loud, like it’s weak and scared but it’s the truth. “I know what I do is unfair. It’s unfair to you, it’s unfair how I always break my promise, but please – Pep –”

“Tony.” Pepper says. “We’re begging for the impossible of each other.”

Tony’s teeth click painfully when his mouth closes sharply, a physical reflex to hold in the desperate pleas that claw up from his throat like caged animals trying to escape. He’s gonna sound like he’s the most pathetic thing in the world, if he lets them out, and it’s not gonna be of any use. He knows. He has to – he has to breathe. Stay calm. Breathe. He has–

Breathe. Damn it. Breathe.

Fuck.

In. Out. Breathe.

(He doesn’t want her to go.)

(He doesn’t want it.)

(Please, please, please.)

“I will be there for you. I will always be there for you. In the way I can.” Pepper assures, intensely. “If this works, if you manage to fight, I will fight beside you. I would. But I need to be sure.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to fight for me.” Tony cries, hurt.

“So you know I can’t ask you to stop for me.”

He wants to say she’s wrong. She’s wrong. She can ask Tony to stop for her, because Tony is saying that she can. He’s given her permission, so many times. If she asks, he’ll do it – doesn’t she know that? Or he’ll try to. He swears he will.

(But—)

But it doesn’t work, does it.

“I am helping in the way I can. Out there, with the agents. Damage control. That’s what I can do. That is my life. Yours… works differently. You’re an Avenger.” Pepper says, as if it’s praiseworthy, she says, as if it’s such a great thing – and Tony hates it. In this moment, he hates it. “I don’t know how to be that.”

It doesn’t work.

“I don’t need you to be an Avenger.”

“No.” She agrees, but then – “You need to be an Avenger, Tony.”, and it’s loving, it’s loving, and understanding, and Tony can’t handle it. “That’s who you are.”

It doesn’t. work.

He drops his head down, and a sob escapes.

He squeezes his eyes shut. His lips shut. He wishes he could block his ears to, to pretend he can’t hear the way her breathing is wet and labored too.

“Tony.” She calls. “Listen to me.”

It’s an order.

Tony can’t raise his head, but breathes in deep, and hopes it counts as a response.

“Do not blame yourself. I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming either of us.” Pepper says, and it’s strong, it’s hard and unyielding, it’s decision and demand, and even though the dark, vicious, malicious voices at the back of Tony’s head never stop whispering, they do go quieter, because Pepper’s voice is more important, more honest, more truth, more of what Tony so desperately needs to hear right now. “A relationship, even if it’s long, doesn’t magically transform people. I love you for who you are, and I want you to be that. So I can’t ask you to give something that makes you… you, just because you’re scared of losing me.”

It makes sense.

It does, he knows, deep inside. At that corner of his brain that keeps logic turned on at all times, despite his best judgment. It makes some sense, in a way. He doesn’t want to – But – it makes sense, okay, Pepper, he admits it, but still, he doesn’t want to—

 “And if you love me, for who I am—” Pepper gulps, her words trembling a little at the end, but she pushes forward, and says, “You have to know that I’m doing this not because I don’t love you, but because I have my own reasons and I mean it when I say the reason I can’t do this is not because you’re a superhero, but because I can’t handle not being able to live with this gap we can’t cross for the rest of our lives.”

“Was there—” Tony bites his lip, reflexively, unnerved by its tremble. “Was there any way we could have stopped this? We could have… found a way?”

“I don’t know.” Pepper admits, mournfully. “We tried, Tony. We tried so hard.”

“I thought—" He tries, but then stops. He doesn’t know – He doesn’t know what he thought. He thought they could just… That it would be easier. It seemed like it would be. It always did, when there was no immediate threat. Peace always made it look like their concerns were too much, almost baseless. It’s hard, to remember the bad side of things when you have a long, extended period of happiness. He guesses – He guesses they forgot. That they hoped for too much.

He certainly did.

“I know.” Pepper says, in a whisper. “Me too.”

 “Can’t we?” Tony miserably asks, even though the words don’t have any strength or actual confidence to them. “We have a wedding scheduled already. We could…”

It doesn’t work.

“That would defeat the purpose of this conversation, wouldn’t it?”

Yes, but it’s also what he’s trying to avoid.

“I need you to believe me, Tony. This is not your fault. I just think we need this. Both of us.”

“Until when?”

A pause. A sniff. “I think you know.”

Forever, then. The official ending.

A tear slips out, treacherous, before he can stop it.

“You know, I—” Tony shrugs, full of fake nonchalance. “Postponing the wedding would be easier than… Than – cancelling it.”

Pepper snorts an unattractive laugh. “I don’t know if that’s true.”

“You won’t know until we try.”

It doesn’t work.

She gives him a soft, miserable look, the bag under her eyes deep and purple, skin with a sickly sheen over her cheekbones, hair in disarray and lips dry, and she still takes his breath. The bags under her eyes can’t hide the beauty of the blue in her irises. She pale tone of her skin does nothing to take away from the striking color of her hair. She looks ethereal and human at the same time. Tony sees – Tony sees her, in his own rose-colored lenses and in the raw, unfiltered sight of truth; And in both, she’s so beautiful it hurts to look at her and know she’s stepping away, know the rope that they both struggled to hold on to is not slipping from her grasp, not because something else is pulling it, but because she’s letting it go – and she’s asking him to do it to. For both of them to drop it, even with so much balancing on it.

He has loved her so much. He doesn’t deserve her, he never did. She’s incredible, and she’s so… she’s gentle with him, even now. Even still.

He loves her. There is so much he would do to keep her happy.

(But of all things.)

(This.)

(It had to be)

(This.)

“I can’t deal with the uncertainty, Tony.” She regretfully says. “And that’s all on me. I need this. I trust you as a friend, and I trust you with my life, but – if this is going to somehow break the trust we have on each other, I would prefer to have you, just as a friend, than not have you at all.”

He understands.

(Isn’t that the worst part?)

He understands.

He grabs her hand, the one with the ring, the ring – and with a small, derisive smile, he can’t help but watch as he runs his thumb over the diamond, the band, feeling the ridges and geometric edges in contrast to the sleek, smooth plane of the band, around her long, elegant finger, in hands dexterous and gentle and, Tony remembers with a rather dark humor, small.

Small enough to fit inside his chest. In his heart.

Metaphorical and literal.

“It looks so beautiful on you.” He marvels, entranced by the sight, even though it doesn’t gleam in the low light of the room. There is no fancy light show as in the pictures or stores, there is no sound to accompany the sight, like an audio effect as in a commercial. It’s beautiful in how real it is. It’s beautiful to see in on her, it’s beautiful because of what it represents, what they tried to make it represent, on the chance she gave it and all it meant. It’s… beautiful. “You’d look so beautiful. I just know it.”

He just won’t be able to see it, will he?

He kept this ring for her. Not since 2008, that was not true, Happy had just – it would’ve been creepy, to keep a ring for a woman specifically, a woman he hadn’t even been dating, that’s not – the ring had existed for a long, long time, is what he means. It had been an impulse. A tragic, mindless, quite embarrassing impulse, he’ll admit it. He just… he thought about Yinsen a lot, after he came back home from Afghanistan. Hard not to. He… The words had hit deep, Tony confesses, about how he had everything and nothing. No family. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to, not that he would ever say it out loud, but – Family was a thing Tony thought about. It was. And one of those things he thought about was…

Well. You know. Marriage. Tony hadn’t been the kind of guy anyone would have married at the time, granted, but it didn’t – he still thought about it. What if. Isn’t that Tony’s entire shtick? What if. He thought about it, because he had to, because—

Because it would be nice. It would be great, actually. He… He would love it. To have someone he could trust, not just with his friendship but with his heart, to be seen and be vulnerable and not fear it. The kind of thing Jarvis and Ana had, when Tony was young. He always kind of wanted that, deep inside. If not something exactly like it, maybe something similar – Tony would have taken almost anything, at certain points. For a bit of honest companionship. But he wanted something real.

And he had wanted so badly to have it with Pepper.

He can see it in his mind’s eye, still. It hurts now, it’s not pure and untouchable, it’s not possible anymore, not… not now, but – the idea is vivid, so much, because he has spent such a long time thinking about this, that is hard to dial it down, even in her presence. To see her in a white dress, smiling and happy, truly happy, because of him.

But it can’t be.

(And he understands.)

(He knows why.)

Tony understands what she means about trust. Trust is something Tony doesn’t have much to spare to begin with, so – he understands. What she’s trying to say. She trusted him when he said it wouldn’t last, the thing with the suit – and that turned out not to be true. He promised to be more careful, and that wasn’t true, for a long while. He promised to stop, to step back and let someone else take the reins, and that didn’t happen either.  He promised signing the Accords would make it easier to step down, and then it didn’t – and then he promised no more surprises, and then he didn’t. He knows trust is something that she definitely has the right to put into question in this relationship.

She has the right. She definitely does.

She probably should.

Tony has hidden so much from her. The Palladium poisoning, the suits, the nightmares, the Iron Legion, Leipzig, Siberia

The surgery.

That last one. The last one she still doesn’t know. And, if Tony is being honest, he hoped – still hopes – she never will.

(He gets it.)

(That is why he understands.)

Truth is, there’s a big part of their lives that just doesn’t overlap no matter how hard they try. A Venn Diagram, that grows larger and larger as they fill their lives with things as the years go by, but so very little of it actually meets the contact point between their individual circles. Tony’s half is filled with Avengers business and upgrades to the suit and meetings with Ross and remodeling the Compound and… Peter. A chest that Tony kept filling and filling with items collected from a world he promised he would step out of when given the chance because it would make her happy. And her part too, it grew beyond places Tony could reach. She kickstarted the September Foundation and the entire new segment of medical aid and prosthesis through SI after Extremis, and her projects became grander and grander until Tony’s participation in them started to diminish because of time management, and the gap just… grew. It was small, but it grew. And it kept growing.

Every time Tony said he would stop but he didn’t. Every time she said she would come by the Compound and be more present in the face of Tony’s other occupation and then didn’t.

They compromised so much.

Tony tried his best to keep his Avenging and his life with Pepper separate, after what happened with the Mandarin. She tried her best to be comprehensive and supportive of Tony’s role as Iron Man, even after experiencing firsthand the dangers of it. He tried to step back, when she admitted she missed him and was scared for his health. She tried to be understanding and to help him after the fallout from the Accords hit him so hard that he couldn’t stand to look at the suit for the first four months.

For a brief, dark moment, he wonders if she’s doing this because she doesn’t believe he will survive this time, not this time – and he hates that the even dares to think of it right in the next second, because it’s such an uncharitable thought, and Pepper would never do something like that.

Or maybe she would. Maybe that’s it.

It wouldn’t be wrong. Tony himself doesn’t know if there’s any way that he’ll come out alive of a second brawl with Thanos. He barely got out of the first one as it was, even if against his will. Especially against his will. Isn’t that proof enough? Maybe. Maybe she has the right to fear that. She does. Tony doesn’t know it himself either. But that’s not it. In all truth, deep down, Tony knows that’s not it.

It’s that… God. It’s just that it’s… too much. That’s it.

It’s too much for her to hear the promises Tony can never keep. It's too much for him to keep fighting her on this and feeling bad every time he has to break a promise to do what he genuinely feels like It’s his duty – maybe even his calling, if he’s truly, pathetically honest about it. To do the thing that he fees, deep in his gut, with more certainty than anything else, that he was meant to do. It’s too much for them, to keep this fight alive and to keep pushing and pulling in directions the other simply cannot give, much less… much less for the rest of their lives.

Shit.

Fuck.

(He wanted—)

(He wanted so badly to do this right.)

(At least this.)

(But it doesn’t work.)

“Why now?” He asks; Not accusatory, not enraged, not even pleading. Maybe, morbidly, a little curious. Because he can’t help but feel like he missed something. He must have – a chance, a choice, something on the way that could have prevented this. Maybe it’s too late – maybe, he has to keep thinking maybe, because the hard, cold truth is too much to bear right now –, but he’d like to know, he thinks. It’d hurt, but he’d like to know.

He has to know if there was a point where he could have fixed this.  

“I had to say something.” Pepper confesses simply. “Before it was too late.”

“Too late because we would be married?”

“Too late before we’re both too lonely to be able to admit the truth.” She raises her eyebrows, in an expression that dares him to contradict her, and they both know he won’t, because it’s true. “I didn’t want to say it. I almost hoped I would chicken out. But I… couldn’t.”

Tony nods.

(He understands.)

God, it fucking hurts.

(He understands.)

(He understands.)

Pepper leans forward, and lays her head on his shoulder, forehead to his clavicle, and she feels warm, almost unnaturally so, even through the fabric of his shirt. It drags a strong, intense, almost all-consuming emotion from inside him, from beneath the thick layer of grief and sadness that is sinking into his stomach like an anchor, and it comes out of him like an eruption, past his lips in a trembling admittance before he can think twice, before he can control the raw vulnerability in his voice, before anything else.

He doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t have to.

She needs to know.

(He understands.)

But she needs to know.

He’ll never forgive himself—

She needs to—

 “I love you.” He says, breathlessly. “I’ll always love you. Despite everything, even with all I’ve done, if it didn’t look like it… I love you. I need – I need you to know that.”

“I love you too.” She murmurs, and her breath on his feels like a branding, burning on his skin, paradoxically, soft and small like the brush of a kiss. “And I don’t regret it, Tony.”

“Even now?”

“Even now.” She says. “Forever.”

Forever, but not. But not.

And just like that—

Just like that. Just like that.

Years and years of longing and impossible dreams of another life, a fantastical, idealistic, maybe even naïve life – those are gone.

It didn’t work.

He couldn’t make it work. They couldn’t. Both of them.

But Tony, too. Tony couldn’t. And he knows, in the secrecy of his own mind, in this silence that stretches between them when neither can find the strength or the words to speak, when the pause makes them so acutely aware of what they have just done and they both freeze and begin to shake in barely repressed sobs as the need to give voice to the anguish that is clawing inside them – he knows, even if she doesn’t, that he does carry more guilt in this than her.

Because he did all of those things – he did make a bunch of promises to her only to break them.

And he continues to do so.

More times than she knows.

So in the end—

In the end, yeah, he was never the soulless, heartless businessman.

But in many ways, Tony has always been, in his very core, a very good liar.

“Can I just—” Tony gulps, and licks his lips, and is glad she’s leaning against him again because this way she can’t see his face as the tears come down without any way to stop them, copious and furious, heavy and consuming, his heart hurting like it’s been dealt a physical blow, like it’s shriveling and dying inside his cold chest. “Can we just – lay down? For a bit? Just – Just – Right here, just a little—”

She nods, jerkily, and it’s so silent and so unlike her that he realizes, with a startling, agonizing clarity, that she’s crying too. He feels a wet spot on his chest where one tear doesn’t manage to go unnoticed, and after that one, more follow so quickly it’s useless work to pretend she isn’t as broken as he is right now.

She doesn’t leave his embrace. She pushes her head into his shoulder so hard it’s almost painful, refusing to cease the contact, and they fall back into the mattress with no grace or comfort whatsoever, crashing down like a shipwreck that has no choice but to give in to the force of the ocean around it and to be consumed by its pull. And they just… lay there.

They lay there, in each other’s arms, because they both know it will not last. They bask in each other’s touch, in each other’s presence, in this intimacy that is, sorrowfully, a perfect mirror of the moment they woke up, when the veil was unbroken, when the words still hadn’t been uttered. When it all was still hiding under that fragile bubble, pretending to be normal.

For a few moments more, the world outside waits.

For a few moments more, they try to keep home standing up, hanging on its’ last legs, wobbly, fractured, but still there – even if for just a little while. She pretends she can’t feel when his chest hitches from where she lays her head over his heart, and he pretends he can’t feel the way she trembles when he wraps his arms around her and squeezes her tight, trembling too.

They lay there. And they wish it was enough.

And yet.

 

 

 

The same old song and dance.

In the end—

He doesn’t get to keep her.

 

 

 

(He never does.)

Notes:

When I say it could have worked out, I mean it. If they had more time. If they had the chance to tap out. They could have made it. I think we all know that.

The thing about time is not so much that it heals the wound - is that it gives you time to treat it. It gives you the chance to look at it not as an ending, but as a possible new start. But you got to give the fog of pain a chance to clear - otherwise, it's not enough. You need time to let yourself learn from it. And there is no time here. That's what all comes down to. They have no time.

Pepper, it's been a pleasure to write your arc. There's so much more I'd like to say but I can't, because I couldn't possibly say them through Tony's eyes - some things, come from Pepper's heart and her heart alone, and no other character would never do them justice. Maybe sometime in the future. And there are some things about Pepper that have not been fully disclosed in this chapter, but we will come back to them later, in other people's arcs. Pepper's character is not being perceived and analyzed just by Tony in this story, but by other characters too - and in due time, we will talk about some things that, right now, Tony is just not in the right mindset to see.

Thank you for reading, friend. I hope I made myself clear despite how sad this had to be, and I hope you can trust me when I say this is not pointless, and it will get better. The journey is just rough. And I told you it would be.

Next chapter, we discuss some more plot, and for our next candidates in the emotional turmoil series, we have Thor and Scott. And the very beginnings of the second long emotional discussion we need to have - out of three. The clock is ticking, friends. Let's pick up the pace.

And for your final consideration, I'd like to announce the winner of our little poll from the last chapter, to celebrate both Suspension of Belief AND Trust Fall for reaching 10k hits! I think no one is surprised by this result, but the winning prompt for the gift fic is Steve's POV from the reunion with Tony in the helipad, from Chapter 4 of this fic! I would like to thank everyone who voted so, so much, I hope anyone who has voted for the other prompts is not too disappointed, but I can promise I'll have many more opportunities to plan for other smaller fics to give more details on this universe and I hope you can look forward to that.

Thank you for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting, as always. If you like my writing, please consider checking out this post, it might be something you're interested in, or this post for another option! See you on the next one, friend.

Chapter 13: Chapter 13

Notes:

Our next arc has arrived! I fondly call it: Wives, kids, and daddy issues.

Yep. We're going down THAT road now.

This arc is an odd one. It includes a lot of characters, two of which you already know about, Thor and Scott, but also more - and so many layers of issues that are related, and at the same time, not at all; and, much like family, it's complicated.

We're gonna start with Thor. Consider this a part I. With a sprinkle of plot, and lots of introspection, let's gently pry open a discussion that, at first, might look like it begins and ends here - but believe me when I say it doesn't. Thor is much more intelligent that most people would give him credit for, and canon has made him a mess of a character, different portrayals as movies went by making his character a very layered, very interesting puzzle to unravel; so it's gonna take some time, but without a doubt, it will be worth it.

I'm sorry for the delay on this chapter, folks, but I hope you like it <3 Also, please, make sure to check out the end notes, I have something important to mention :)

Now let's get this show on the road.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

New York.

 

  1. 2012.

 

Loki. Physics. Wong.

 

Portals. Scepter, HYDRA, Sokovia, Titan, Norway, PEGASUS, Zola, Iridium, Selvig—

 

Stones.

 

 

Stones.

 

 

(The world is just a blur of words that make no sense.)

 

 

He stares.

Stares.  

He sees nothing past the blurry sheen of unshed tears staining his eyes, a hazy mist of agony and sorrow floating right before him, a veil of numbness blocking everything on the outside from his perception, even sensation, even the cold. He sits, on top of his worktable, next to the mockup of the Gauntlet that still makes his skin crawl with the too uncanny similarities, the lingering feeling of the scorching hot brand of despair and fear carved into him on the sandy ruins of Titan, and –

Stares.

He stares at the projection board, without actually seeing it, because he can’t muster any brainpower to focus on anything other than how absolutely shitty he feels in this moment. Anything, other than the echo of his grief, than multiple what if’s and maybe’s and how he’s an idiot, and a fucking mess, and he deserves this. It’s not fair to her, to think that. It’s not fair, to undermine the weight of her decision, to respect her right to ask for distance and to know better what is best for herself – but it’s hard, even for Tony Stark, not to linger in writhing self-pity, just a little, to hurt himself in the deepest way he knows how, because he’s addicted and he’s helpless, because it’s what he always does; and it that makes him ridiculous or pathetic, that’s why he’s here in the first place, isn’t he?

So no one can see him.

God, he had taken forever to stop crying. He hated crying, hated it, hated what it did to his body, the feeling of trembling for no damn reason, hands unsteady and shaky, eyes burning, the hitching of sobs.

And Tony had always been so soft, so… weak to some things. Heart too fragile, even before the shrapnel, to the hits that actually weaseled between his ribs and expertly tore into the malleable, pliant, meek flesh beneath.

(Don’t you fucking cry, boy.)

It’s hard to breathe.

That’s always the worst thing.

It’s so hard to breathe.

“Stark.” A voice calls unexpectedly, from behind him – and even though it’s soft, Tony jerks ungracefully as a wet, rough noise of surprise escapes his raw throat, the sickly sensation of his nose clogged completely more than enough to make the exhale that escapes him sound incredibly out of breath.

He turns around. Stupidly, because it allows his visitor to see his red face and eyes puffy with tears.

“Thor.” Tony garbles, and frantically does the mortified about being caught crying routine – sniffs loudly and horribly, wipes his eyes with the back of this hand, blinking frantically in a vain attempt to ease the bloody look in his eyes, sliding off the table with so little grace that he lands on his trembling feet with a terrible, embarrassing movement. Damn it. God fucking damn it. “Hey, buddy. What are you doing here?”

Thor, as expected, halts. His eyes – blue, gold – lock onto Tony’s with unnerving, penetrating intensity, as if they can see far more than they should, and beyond Tony’s already paranoid feelings over being seen vulnerable, the fact that this is Thor, a god, a creature so different from Tony himself, from all of them; And beyond that, a person who Tony has never quite understood or connected with, a relationship within the team who had remained, in some ways, so distant still – that is the last thing Tony needs in his worst moment of vulnerability.

Though he should count his blessings, he supposes.

At least it’s not Barton or Rogers.

Or Natasha.

“Is everything alright?” Thor inquires, tone incredibly delicate, and it’s terribly polite of him to ask, given how awful Tony knows he looks. It’s not even a question worth asking, at this point.

Regal manners, he muses, with a wry laugh.

“Yeah. Fine.” Tony waves away the concern, lowering his head to hide his eyes and shrugging to attempt even the slightest hint of nonchalance.

“That doesn’t look fine—”

“You want something?” Tony interrupts, as politely as he can manage without losing the hard steel in his tone, feeling immediately caged even though Thor barely gave two steps forward into the workshop. “I assume FRIDAY told you I was here.”

It’s a fair assumption, too. Tony doubts anyone would have come down without being prompted – no one ever did, before. It was an unspoken arrangement between him and the team, sort of. Never really discussed, but it was just how things had developed – the workshop had remained Tony’s sanctuary, neutral-ish ground between his SI business and his Avenger life, and whatever interaction had happened between Tony and the team, it mostly had occurred in the upper floors, never down here; with, of course, the exception of Bruce.

Thor would have probably looked for Tony in his bedroom first. He wonders if he did. He wonders, masochistically, if Pepper was there and they talked, even though Thor was clearly caught off guard at finding Tony bawling his eyes out in the poorly lit, falsely secure comfort of his workshop, and Pepper had clearly said, with every letter, that she’d—

She’d be in the hangar all day, and when bedtime came, she’d find herself a new room in the West Wing.

Tony can’t even pretend it doesn’t tear his heart right open just thinking about how cold the bed it’s gonna be that night.

He might not sleep at all.

Might not even go to the room.

Something tells him that it’s still extremely early in the morning, or early enough that everyone else is still sleeping, so Thor might not have checked the bedroom, Tony considers, but that only solidifies the theory that this little meeting here is 100% FRIDAY’s schemes at work. Tony wouldn’t know – he muted her, as soon as he stepped out of the room and she attempted to call for Rhodey. He wasn’t having it. Asking her now would be too obvious, he guesses, too telling of his pain and how poorly his attempts of dealing with his feelings are going so far, especially if he dared to do it in front of Thor; And though his pride is not something Tony has much left of, always a fickle thing and too much of a hazy concept for him to pay it much mind, but humiliation is still something he’s very aware and very familiar with, and the burning heat of shame still stings in his memory just like the sting of scotch, and he can’t have his body tasting either or else the spiral down will never stop.

This is FRIDAY’s attempt of giving him comfort when he refuses to be helped. It’s sweet, in a way, if Tony was feeling charitable enough to admit it.

But she is young, as she still hasn’t learned.

Tony, in turn, has had his whole life to learn how to push people away.

“I couldn’t sleep. Not like this.” Thor says, almost conversationally, and maybe it would have been convincing if he hadn’t stared at Tony unblinkingly as if he feared Tony would do something in the split second it would take him to open his eyes. When Tony does not react, still hunched over the table with shoulders raised like a wary animal, ready to spook, Thor’s body language mellows into something… softer, more open, surprisingly inviting for his rugged appearance and bulky frame. “I thought of finding Banner, but I’ve been informed he’s asleep. I think he spent the entire night going through the books, and he might still be out for a couple of hours.”

Tony heaves out a deep sigh, feeling guilty for his overly-cautious posture when Thor is being so tortuously polite, and he forces his voice to be gentler and more considerate when he replies, “Did you need him for something?”

“I thought I could offer some help, in any way I can.” Thor raises his shoulders a little, a shadow of the innocence and pure heartedness he used to wear on his sleeve still there, still softening him at the edges, and it does ease the ache in Tony’s chest, if not by making him feel better, by making him at least glad some good thing seems to have survived the war, no matter how dreadful it has been. “I didn’t get any of the books last night, and I apologize, maybe I could have helped, but—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Tony assures, after a pause to clear his throat, feeling swollen and raw from the heaving breaths he couldn’t have held before. “I don’t actually think we’re gonna get anything out of those books. Magic really doesn’t explain much, in my experience.”

“But that is one way I can help.” Thor says, with a spike of eagerness in his voice, much more serious and way less boisterous than Tony remembers him – and when he steps forward to stand in front of Tony, his posture speaks of confidence, but hard-earned and knowing. “I realized, after our encounter with the Sorcerer last night, that there might be something I failed to mention that could be helpful, or some stories that might be old tales for me, that actually hide important truths. It’s not unheard of, to have secrets hidden where everyone can see them, in our history.”

He grimaces a little, as if something sour has suddenly burst in his tongue and memories, but it happens too quickly for Tony to latch onto.

“Much like the story I mentioned about the Bifrost and the creation of the Universe, and how it allows us to travel across long distances with dark energy – our myths, in Asgard, speak of the power of the Stones from way before any of the Sorcerers like that man Wong were ever born.” Thor elaborates. “We’ve had books on them in Asgard long before these books were ever written. And that knowledge might be useful, if we know how to use it.”

“Okay.” Tony exhales, a little taken aback with the direction the conversation took, not expecting Thor not to press the issue of Tony’s clearly messy state or his solitude in the workshop. If this was anyone else, Tony’s sure they would have pushed – he’d been ready to argue or distract or even lie his way out of this discussion, to weasel away from it with almost disgustingly polished practice, but this is Thor; And he doesn’t. He doesn’t ask.

The whiplash is almost strong enough to make him dizzy.

Finding himself at loss, Tony asks, prompting him to continue, “What are you thinking?”

Thor takes in what seems to be a self-encouraging breath, before explaining himself, “When Jane was carrying the Aether, my father told me of the Stones. Not in so many words, but he did.” He recalls, somberly. “And when I searched for the Norns to ask for guidance, they told me of the Stones too. Two warnings that I did not know were entwined, until last night.”

“Norns?” Tony frowns, the name unfamiliar.

“The keepers of fate. Of past, present, and future.”

Tony feels a shiver run down his arms, hairs sticking up on their ends, and he hates the intense heebie-jeebies this magic talk gives him every single time. At a loss for words, the only thing he thinks to reply is, “I think I saw that on a Disney movie once.”

Thor nods, though Tony is sure he has no idea what Tony is talking about. “I asked the Norns’ guidance when Ultron threatened us with the help of the HYDRA twins. I saw—” He stops, and he looks like he reconsiders his words a thousand times before he settles on what he’s actually gonna say, very carefully enunciating when he does, “I had a vision.”

“You said so.” Tony reminds him. “That’s why we call – Vision. That’s why we called him that. You’ve told us this.”

“Yes. But we haven’t given it the importance it needs.”

“How much more important can it be?” Tony asks, not to be contrary, but feeling a little annoyed at the reminder of that absolute mess that was 2015 – Tony didn’t like to think about Ultron, even if he did it anyway, a lot, and what did it matter – Vision is gone, the Mind Stone is gone, how does a hallucination caused by some… cryptic Asgardian beings is any use for them now?

“Because I saw Thanos.”

Tony halts, confused.

“What.”

“I saw Thanos. Well, not Thanos, the Gauntlet—” Thor fumbles a little, almost ungracefully, but shoulders on, gesturing vaguely to the mockup beside Tony. “But I saw it. In the shape of a nebula.”

Tony can’t do much more than to stare at him, brows pinched in confusion, bracing himself against the worktop, fingers cold.

“You can imagine my surprise,” Thor emphatically says, almost as if he’s daring Tony to contradict him, words drawing out in a knowing tone. “When I was told you arrived from space – when you shouldn’t even have survived, given your conditions –, but you did, and you had a woman with you, a daughter of Thanos, named Nebula.

Oh.

That’s—

“I think you’re reading too much into this, buddy. Could be a coincidence.” He hastily says. Because it has to be. Right. It has to be. Space alien, with an alien daughter – with a name of a phenomenon observed in space. The odds of that happening aren’t unlikely; Thor must be imagining things. They’re desperate, they’re reaching for answers where there aren’t any at this point – and Tony wants to tell Thor that, as kindly as he can, but both kindness and words fail him right now, locked away inside him beneath all the nerves and grief, negative triggers so close to snapping that the urge to block the even simplest consideration that this might mean something comes so readily that it has taken hold of him even before he can stop it. “Not like there’s many names in space.”

“It’s not.” Thor argues, undeterred, fully confident in his theory. “Seers are powerful beings. In Asgard, receiving a prophecy from a seer is the same being chosen by the forces of the universe themselves. It is a dangerous thing, to perceive time beyond what others can see, to feel past and future like one, but I did it anyway, and when I did, I saw something. You cannot ignore such a calling when it comes—”

“Okay.” Tony interrupts, too frazzled and anxious to sit here and wait for Thor to finish his speech before he hears the actual part that he needs to know to make sense of this. “What did you see?”

Thor visibly steels himself for this conversation, sensing that Tony does not believe him, but refusing to not be heard. There is a hardened, solid strength to the way he clenches his jaw, and straightens his spine, after taking in a sharp, strong breath – and Tony recognizes the posture as one he does himself, when he’s bracing himself for an argument with someone he knows almost surely won’t believe him, and he has to make them to, because he has no choice. It’s not an arrogant thing, or a prideful one, either – it’s a special kind of desperation, it’s knowing there’s something bad coming and he needs to convince people to trust him, even if they don’t want to, because it’s something important, and it’s bigger than whatever grievance they might have between them. A skill acquired with no small effort, Tony knows very well, to put bigger needs in front of even the most hurtful interactions, and, to be fully honest… Not something he expected from Thor.

Not that Thor had ever been vengeful, or kept grudges, no – with a brother like that, Tony can’t imagine grudge is something Thor could hold very well, but…

As a god, as a prince, Tony hadn’t expected to see this kind of diplomacy from him. Insistence in having his arguments heard, yes. This – This almost submissive, almost pleading requesting for understanding, for a moment of doubt and consideration, never.

And he wonders, for a moment, if Thor has always been like this, always had this almost somber side to him, or if this is a recent development – and what exactly has happened, to change him like that.

“The vision the Norns gave me was a revelation.” Thor says quietly, much more quietly than Tony is used to hearing his voice, eyes blue and gold and filled with a knowledge Tony can even begin to unveil, clouded by sorrowful wisdom. “I went to London looking for answers on how to defeat Ultron, and they gave me more than I bargained for – the Maximoff girl showed me the Mind Stone, and the Norns showed me the rest. And I think that’s important.”

Tony takes in a breath, feeling, suddenly, like he’s walking on eggs, and he doesn’t like it. “Alright – I’m gonna need you to explain this to me like I’m a five-year-old, because I’m not getting it. And I want to get it, I promise, so – What do you mean?”

“You said the Stones have a mind. A collective mind of their own. I’m saying I think you are right.” Thor pointedly says, short pauses between words like he’s speaking through empty lungs, filled only with solid confidence and frantic confidence, full of feeling and empty of air. “And I think you are right that the Stones might be taking things from their hosts, the same way their hosts harness power from them – because the Maximoff girl showed me things she couldn’t have known, never, so I assume the Mind Stone was the one showing me my vision.”

“What kind of things?”

“She couldn’t have known about Vision.” Thor points out, as if it’s a stunning revelation. “She couldn’t have known, because not even Ultron knew. Remember. When we were attacked by the twins by Ultron’s command, Ultron had yet to steal the supply of Vibranium from that man Klaue. The process to create Vision’s body had yet to even begin – But I saw him, and when I asked the Norns, I only confirmed what I had already seen – and I was not supposed to, but Maximoff showed me anyway.”

“W— What is that supposed to mean?”

“The Norns see past, present, and future as one.” Thor says, cryptically. “And I fear I might have seen too much of the future, and didn’t realize until it was too late.”

Tony looks at him silently, mouth gaping and forehead scrunched in a frown, at a complete loss for words.

“I have learned not to ignore the warnings of a prophecy. My father spoke of them but I had never gotten one myself, and I was careless and didn’t realize what it would cost me.” Thor solemnly says, with a heavy tony and even heavier heart. “I know better now.”

“You think Wanda showed you the future.” Tony more affirms than asks, even though he means to ask – he has to ask, because that can’t possibly be it. He must be hallucinating this. He must be getting this wrong, because there’s no way. “She couldn’t do that. That was never within the range of her powers. I mean – I’m not sure how Wanda’s powers worked, Thor, but she never demonstrated any kind of… prophetic tendencies. I don’t know what you saw, but…”

“My vision became true, Stark. I saw Asgard fall, both in dream and reality, and I was to blame, I saw Vision before he was created, I saw Stones we didn’t even know existed until that day.” Thor says, refusing to be persuaded. “It was more than a nightmare meant to wound. It was a prophecy.

Okay, Thor won’t listen, alright, but—

Wanda couldn’t do that. She couldn’t, Tony knows that. They had done extensive tests to figure out the limits of her powers when she joined the team, and though Tony hadn’t been around, he definitely had been reading the results; Especially after the lovely wind-whammy she’d given him in Sokovia the first time they met. And seeing the future had never made the list, not even after she started to control and amplify her powers on purpose.

She’d gotten her powers from the Mind Stone – which explains the hallucinations, but not prophecies. That should’ve been the Time Stone. Strange could see the future, in a way, or so he said; The possibilities of future, at least, not something defined and unchangeable.

(Tony.)

(There was no other way.)

And it doesn’t mean anything, it means possibilities, how could Wanda possibly have seen the future?

“Alright. Okay. Let’s consider this, then.” Tony says, raising a hand in a placating gesture, hoping to convey to Thor that he’s at least willing to try and see this from his perspective. But before he can do that, he needs one worry out of the way. “Are you saying that all of the visions Wanda created are destined to become true?”

Because—

Because Tony can not deal with that idea.

If nothing else—

This cannot be true.

“I say I do not know.” Thor begrudgingly concedes. “But it would be foolish not to treat them as such, knowing it is a possibility.”

That’s not the answer Tony was hoping for.

“And what does that change?” He says, a little too desperately, a little too rejecting. “Nothing. Right? It changes nothing. So what, you saw Nebula? Could still be a coincidence. I’m not convinced.”

“That’s not all.” Thor says suddenly, without any warning.

“How is that not all, you just said—"

“I saw you, Stark. In my vision.” Thor interrupts, and Tony chokes in his own tongue by the mere abruptness of it. “That is why I’m here, talking to you, and not to Nebula. I think you play a part in this, as do the Stones.”

Tony swallows down a whimper of agony, reducing it only to a flat, emotionless question of, “What kind of part.”

“I was looking for answers on how to defeat Ultron. Though we defeated him together, you were the only one I saw.”

“Makes sense, I created him and he hated me—”

“He might have hated you, but I am not sure you were the one who created him.” Thor says, nonsensically.

“What are you talking about, the Ultron program was literally my idea, I convinced Bruce to help me build him with the Stone—”

“And with the Stone, it went mad. As all things do. Ultron himself came from the Mind Stone, I’ve told you this.” Thor rebukes, annoyed, frustrated by Tony’s adamant arguing. “It was not your hand who made him vengeful. If you don’t believe me, remember that you and Banner have also made Vision, a being, that if you’ll recall, was able to lift my hammer. And I think that wasn’t for nothing.”

“He lifts – He lifted your hammer because you made him with your powers, Thor. You shocked him into life, do you remember?” Tony heaves, sweating uncomfortably under Thor’s too knowing look.

“Power isn’t what makes one worthy.”

“Doesn’t matter what makes someone worthy, because that makes no sense.” Tony concludes, eager to shut down this conversation entirely.  “The only thing I had to do with Ultron is that I made him. And that’s saying a lot. That – That’s it, I made him, it’s on me, and that’s why your… You were the one who made Vision worthy. Not me. And it doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t matter, because right now, we need to focus on the Stones and how we’re gonna get them, not something that happened almost three years ago and it’s too late to fix now.”

He stops, taking in a shaky breath, feeling rattled from his own outburst – his emotions are running to close to the surface, almost beneath the skin, and it’s exhausting, it’s so exhausting to be here, to argue about this, while his heart is still tender and bruised from a hit he might never recover from. It’s like he’s trying to fill in the hollow with something, anything to distract him, but all his body can produce is rage and annoyance and fear, no logic; And he wants to help Thor, because he might actually know something useful to them, like he knew about dark energy, but Tony can’t focus on the mission now. Much less focusing on deciphering whatever Thor thinks he knows about whatever visions he might have had under Wanda’s influence.

“What do you want me to say, Thor?” Tony hunches his shoulders, defensively. “I don’t know what any of it means.”

Thor takes a moment, analyzing Tony with unnerving patience, making him feel caged, vulnerable, practically see-through.

“I believe,” Thor says, with delicate consideration, enunciating slowly and clearly, voice barely above a whisper; Almost as if he’s confiding in Tony, something he is not supposed to share but is doing it anyway, leaning down a little so he can be more closely to Tony’s eye level, refusing to let him avert his gaze. “That just like I saw Vision, and like I saw Nebula – I saw you, and the Stones, and I think they are connected. All of them. Whether you admit it or not, you wielded the Mind Stone, in your own way. Not like my brother, and not like the enemies we faced in Sokovia, and not like Ultron. You found something inside it that none of us knew was there, and I think you can find something that will help us stop it, if you just believe I’m saying the truth.

Tony has no reply to that.

Thor’s earnest, honest stare is unyielding, depths of secrets so alien Tony can not even hope to unravel just by looking, a burning flame of hope and trust still living bright inside him despite all the tragedy that seems to follow him – them – like stains that refuse to be washed away. Blood and blood and blood, and yet, Thor’s faith is still as sharp and alive as he is, thriving where Tony honestly didn’t think it would ever be possible to do. Tony doesn’t know how to deal with this kind of hope. A few days ago, he would have welcomed it, like he welcomed Thor’s rage and desire for revenge, to pull the others into Tony’s outrageous plan to take back what Thanos has stolen from them—

But now, when the one chance of happiness Tony still had for himself has walked out of his life, and the mission at hand doesn’t get any easier, only harder, and bleaker, and darker… What kind of face can he show to Thor, who has managed to do what Tony couldn’t anymore, to hope that there might be a chance when Tony had been so close to deciding to quit.

“Stark.” Thor says, in face of Tony’s prolonged, morbid silence, and the lost look in his widened eyes. “Why don’t you believe me? Why do you refuse to see that this might be our chance to fix what has happened—"

Why?

Why!?

Just like that, the red-hot pit of fury stinging inside him floods over, and the bits he cannot contain spill out in his words, venomous and wounded, bitterness staining his tongue and teeth, tasting of copper and iron. “Because it’s dangerous? Because it’s the worst thing we’ve ever done, one of my worst ideas, and you’re all just fine with it? No one thought for one second that I might not be right in this? Putting ourselves on the line again for the smallest chance of victory in the entire universe – Lang is leaving his wife and daughter behind to help us in this suicide mission, and none of you, not a single one, tried to stop me before I got us into this mess!?”

Thor backs off instinctively, removing his face from his leaning position towards Tony and taking half a step back, making a strategic retreat in case he needs the range of motion should Tony get violent. And Tony sees this, and he feels like absolute garbage, because this is Thor, who has done nothing more than go along with Tony’s bullshit plan since the start, who is now in the workshop out of his own volition, trying to help, and Tony is barking in his face because he’s feeling lonely and rejected by his fiancé – ex-fiancé.

Thor has nothing to do with this. Thor hasn’t done anything wrong to Tony, ever, and he doesn’t deserve Tony’s bitterness, just like Bruce hadn’t. Tony is just… taking it out on the people who have never done him harm, and he needs to stop it.

Tony squeezes his eyes with his thumb and index finger, pressing into the bridge of his nose, trying in vain to keep a splitting headache at bay – and if his hand hides his face, if he leans his head down and faces the floor to hide from the shame for his lack of control, he hopes Thor won’t ask.

“Sorry. I just—” Tony says, trembling, after a long, shattered exhale. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Thor stays quiet for a long, long moment, so long that if Tony couldn’t see his feet from his lowered gaze, he would almost have believed that he left. It’s only when the awkwardness becomes too big, and the silence too heavy, that he dares to raise his head, and finds Thor, face open, eyes so sincere and concerned that it hurts to look at him.

“What happened?” He asks.

Tony knows what he means.

He makes a noise that’s supposed to be a thoughtful hum, but sounds choked and tight, like a repressed sob, and not for the first time, Tony regrets that he even woke up at all today, wishing he had stayed in bed, asleep, with Pepper in his arms for the rest of his life.

“Pepper and I won’t—” He tries to say, and as soon as he does, he knows he won’t be able to get the words out. He has to stop, breathe, and try again, with different words, in a way that won’t make him choke. “We decided to break it off. For real, this time.”

It’s horrid how quickly Thor’s eyes glow with understanding.

“I am sorry.” He says, mutedly. “I did not know.”

“Well—” Tony shrugs, with all the nonchalance he doesn’t feel. “It’s not like it’s unexpected. It’s been a long time coming, I think.”

“I thought you were engaged. There would be a wedding.” Thor inquires, without actually making the question, and the sad smile Tony gives him is all the answer he needs. “I’m sorry.”

Tony laughs, rueful, miserable.

“She can’t stand me fighting. She can’t.” Tony explains, looking down to the Gauntlet so he won’t have to look at Thor. “And she was right, when she said this was dangerous. We don’t even know if we’re gonna make it to Thanos, much less if we’re gonna get out alive from fighting him again… So maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we should quiet down, accept this, and work our asses off doing something that’s actually worth it, like helping the people who are out there.”

“And what about the people who aren’t there?” Thor reminds him. “What about the people in planets all over the universe, who are dying as Earth is, and have no Avengers to protect them?”

Tony can’t say anything to that.

He knows Thor is right.

He knows.

He’s just trying to find excuses to jump out because he is a coward.

A coward, who has tried to convince himself that he can live with the decision of choosing to step out over billions and trillions of lives.

“I am sorry for Miss Potts, Stark.” Thor says, and he means it, and that is what hurts the most.

Tony shrugs, and bites his lip, shifting his weight from foot to foot just to keep himself doing the slightest bit of movement – dreading that, if he stays still, he might actually start crying again.

Unexpectedly, a heavy hand lays on his shoulder.

He peeks to the side, and yeah – Thor walked around the corner of the table and placed himself next to Tony, his entire body postured in a comforting, open, perfectly amicable expression, a willingness to be present and to be a safe place for Tony to lay his grievances on that he had never expected from Thor. They have never been the kind of people who shared these kinds of moments, never have been close enough to even have more than a fun, amusing conversation; Much less something as… As personal as this, something that Thor is so blatantly offering to help Tony shoulder, at his most vulnerable, most broken.

Maybe it’s not polite, to be this shocked; But he is. He is shocked.

What had happened to Thor when he was gone? What has… What could have possibly started this?

“You know… I haven’t spoken to Jane in years. Not after we – separated. I can only hope she is okay, and she’s out there, alive.” Thor says, unexpectedly, and it catches Tony off guard how he is sympathizing with Tony, being open about his own experience, in a way that Tony can see, from the way his own gaze lowers and a soft, sad smile tugs at the corners of his lips, that Thor truly, truly means it.

“I’m sure she’s fine.” Tony reflexively says, before he can think about it.

It’s Thor’s turn to give him a wry, false smile.

“There is no need for that. I appreciate the hopeful words, but… From the way these last few years have developed – the outcome of my past battles, I find hard to have any hope that this tragedy might have not struck her as well.” He laughs, full of self-deprecation and sorrow. “Like I’ve said, I haven’t spoken to her in years. And yes, I’d like to know if she’s out there, if she’s well, but I understand that, with the time restraint we have hanging over our heads, my search for her out there in the ashes would bring me nothing but more despair.”

Again, he has a point. Tony feels… oddly comforted, at the same time he feels chided, when he realizes he is not the only one second-guessing his decision in partaking this mission. He knows he was the one who suggested it, so if he backs out, it’s the worst kind of hypocrisy; But he is not the only one having doubts, and most of the time it feels like it is, so the reminder that that’s not true is unexpectedly alleviating.  

“She was the one to cut me from her life – and for good reason, I admit. I wouldn’t admit it before, but I see no reason why not to, now.” Thor confesses; And that’s the right word, confesses, because the way he says it… Tony doesn’t think Thor has ever talked about this before. Not this openly. Not this… truthfully. “Not when I’ve lost everything. My home, my best friend, my brother, my father. My sister, who I didn’t even have the chance to truly meet. Granted, she was the worst, I certainly didn’t miss much in that regard, but—”

He stops and shakes his head lightly, sensing he’s getting off track, and Tony’s mind is still reeling with the sudden display of vulnerability that he can’t say a word until Thor continues, in hushed, secretive tones.

“I’ve realized I have to be thankful for the time I had with her, even if it was short, and even if I miss it now. Because I had it, and that has to be enough.” His sad smile grows wider, pulling at his cheeks in a way that looks a little painful, but there’s something so unbearably fond in his expression that Tony finds himself unable to look away. “I knew I couldn’t have her forever, given the very nature of our lifespans – but now, even the smaller moments are things I cherish deeply. Because I did love her, and if I don’t have good memories to keep me going forward with my battles, I would have nothing.”

Tony – Tony finds himself frozen in shock, for a long moment, considering Thor’s admission with a careful hand, almost delicately, as if it’s breakable. Surprised, by even being granted the confession at all. Thor’s echoing sadness over his loss of someone he cherished, of a lover who has stepped away; If it were anyone else saying this to him, Tony would have exploded in anger, in the wounded, hurtful way only someone who has been emotionally drained can, when pushed into letting go of their grief before they are ready to – But he can’t do that.

Not at Thor.

Tony knows Thor is a god. It’s not easy to forget, given his size, his posture, and his power, but it rarely comes up to the attention for anything other than a confirmation that yes – there are not alone in the universe, yes, there are actual, living alien-gods, yes, there are beings out there more powerful than they can imagine; But rarely ever, Thor’s… essence is brought up for the mere fact that he, for all intents and purposes, has seen far more than any of them would dare to imagine. Tony has no idea how old Thor is, and he wouldn’t dare to ask now, but he is fully aware that Thor has been alive for centuries before any of them, even Rogers, and, if he survives, he will be alive for many centuries to come, long after they are gone.

There is no existential dread to the idea, or envy, or anything like that; It’s just… the way it must put things into perspective, to live that long, to have that much time to… be. Ever since Afghanistan, time has been a constant enemy in Tony’s life, robbing him of so much, so many lost chances – and Thor, who has more time in his hands that anyone could ever ask for, somewhere down the line, has learned a wisdom that humans like Tony can only hope to gain a sliver of, a capacity to… treasure the things that don’t last long, to forgive so easily as he does.

Maybe that’s why Thor, for all his fiery temperament, is so awful at keeping serious grudges. The guy has almost choked him once, and Tony had practically goaded him into doing it, and he had no bitterness over it. He has no grudge when he speaks of Wanda, even though he has implied that Wanda has somehow messed up badly with his head, and he has no grudge for Tony for Ultron, as he has no grudge for no one, not even for Loki. Loki, his own brother, who had tried to destroy him – personally. Thor had forgiven him as easy as anything, mourned him now as sincerely and completely as anyone who had never been wronged would have, and it’s…

Humbling.

In a way, it’s humbling, to know that Thor insists on treasuring small things, like his relationship with Dr. Foster, or their team. The camaraderie that existed between them, before. It had been tentative, and, Tony knows now, not exactly what he thought it was, but it had its moments – and it’s startling, to realize that Thor, a god who literally has a weapon that has wounded Thanos before, is still here, hoping there will be a team put together to go with him to battle.

Tony knows he is not nearly as wise as Thor is, for all the times Thor sounds like he’s too innocent, or too aloof, or too… something; There has always been a quiet, silent sort of intelligence to him, something that went unnoticed beneath the impressive image and power he had, but present anyway, and now, with his dual colored eyes, scars, and somber look – he uses that wisdom on his sleeve, much closer to reach, somehow gentler and harsher at the same time, a frightening power in and of itself.

Tony is not as wise, not even close. He’s a genius, sure, but never for matters of the heart.

But… To cherish things—

To be able to accept losing Pepper as wholeheartedly as Thor could accept Jane’s decision, to be able to talk about it and mean it, to feel sad for seeing her go but not butchered by the idea that he might have lost the love of his life – Tony wishes he could say he knows how to do that.

Maybe he needs time.

Maybe.

Or else he’ll have to shoulder on, swallow the cries, and find a way to march forward anyway.

He just doesn’t know how.

“I apologize.” Thor mutters, heartfelt, letting his hand slip heavily from Tony’s shoulder in a lazy, exhausted glide, when Tony fails to provide any response. “I don’t mean to sound discouraging. I’m sure Miss Potts—”

“I won’t lie to you.” Tony says, quickly, but sincerely. “I won’t. Alright. Then you – Just grant me the same courtesy, okay, big guy. I’ll… I’ll be fine. I’ll cherish the little things.”

He’ll try. Soon.

Not now.

He can’t do it now.

The wound is still fresh, the edges where he feels like something inside him as been ripped off still aching and raw, tender to even the slightest touch, but he’ll be kinder to the memory when he can. And it’s not like he isn’t grateful already for having been loved by Pepper, because he is, he always has been. But that will have to be enough.

Not now.

But soon.

Thor and Tony look at each other for a moment, a stretch of silence that feels oddly… honest, despite no words being said, only the weight of the truth between them more than enough to fill the workshop in a sentiment much warmer than Tony thought himself capable of feeling in this morning, when slowly, the conversation starts to catch up to him past his first initial shock, and he can manage to shake himself out of his stupor long enough to say:

“M’sorry.” He mumbles, but it’s sincere. “About Dr. Foster. And… your brother.”

Thor nods, heavily, looking unbearably grateful.

“I heard what you said, that Thanos attacked your ship. I can put two and two together.” Tony explains- “For all it’s worth, although your brother has given us a lot of crap, he was still your brother, and I’m sure… I’m sure you loved him.”

“I did. Flawed and mad as he was, we could be as odd as day and night, but he was my family, and I will miss him. Every time I thought he was gone, I still missed him as much as I did in the first place. Even with all he has done, his loss always feels like it’s new.” Thor says mournfully, as truthful as Tony expected him to be. “I miss all of them. My mother, my father. Asgard is all the family I have left – and they are still gone… The ones who could escape with Valkyrie when Thanos attacked our ship.”

For a second, Tony fears he has made a mistake, because Thor’s expression closes off tightly, a dark cloud of worry and sadness looming over him; the memory painful, obviously, and Tony nearly apologizes for even bringing it up when that same tender, leveled yet still wistful smile returns to his face.

“I wish I still had my father’s council sometimes, or my mother’s wisdom, or simply the comforting company of my brother… But as all gods before me, they have served their lives and their causes with honor and glory, and when my time comes, I will accept my fate as they have, proudly. And until then, I will do my best to honor everything they have taught me, for better or for worse, to honor my own cause.”

Tony may be wallowing in sorrow for losing the woman he loves, but still, his heart finds in itself strength to squeeze even harder in sympathy for Thor’s own losses, grand and raw as they are – his mother and father, apparently, his brother, and sister, his hammer, and his home. It’s enough to make Tony wonder how can he possibly still find the strength to fight.

It’s not unusual, for people to be in awe of Thor.

But Tony thinks this is the first time he’s actually experiencing this awe so fiercely, so honestly, so… raw.

“That’s the spirit, big guy.” Tony says, because he’s an asshole who doesn’t know how to express genuine admiration, but he does want to say… something. He wants Thor to know he is listening, and that he is, as much as he can, trying to believe what Thor is saying. Though Thor’s wisdom speaks of experience beyond Tony’s capabilities, Tony owes him, if not for the fight, for this incredible display of trust on Thor’s part, to at least try.

Thor, as if sensing his thoughts, gives him a warm smile.

“You shouldn’t doubt yourself.” Thor says, with a gesture of his head – like a king praising his best warrior, commending him, and the comparison is so unbidden but so… weirdly accurate that it actually sparks a little twinge of humor in Tony’s tired heart. “You are trying to honor your mission, as much as it pains you, as am I. You shouldn’t doubt that. You have found a replacement for Uru, and that’s no small feat for anyone who is not one of the Dwarves from Nidavellir. Stormbreaker has been the only thing capable of wounding Thanos, so if we can create weapons and shields out of the same material, and fill them with the power of the Sorcerers of the Time Stone, our chances are better than it may seem.”

“Spells.” Tony says, bleakly. “You want to put spells in my armor.”

“No.” Thor gives an airy chuckle. “I am aware of your aversion to anything that could be called magic, Stark. If you don’t want protection spells, that is your choice. But I do believe, that much like the Sorcerers of the Time Stone can harness power from the universe, and like the Maximoff girl could harness power from the Mind Stone, there can be a way for us to harness power from the Stones even before we manage to take them off his Gauntlet. It would allow us to fight the Infinity Stones with equal power, which might be our only chance to win.”

Wait, hold on.

What.

Thor.” Tony gasps, bracing himself against the table with a sudden lack of breath. “Wait – Why didn’t you say that earlier!?”

“I was trying to, and you kept refusing to listen!” Thor bellows, opening his arms in an exasperated shrug, like a kid who is annoyed that they’re not getting their point across.

“That was not what you were saying, you were talking about Norns and prophecies and seeing the future, how is that related to us redirecting the power of the Stones against Thanos?

“You would have seen the connection, if you’d had let me explain—”

“I let you explain, and it only got more confusing—”

“You weren’t listening, and don’t pretend you were, you refused to accept—”

Thor!” Tony interrupts, raising his hands in a halting position to physically force the argument to a stop. “Hold on. Okay? Okay. Now, again, tell me what you mean, easy and simple this time. Hey!” He screams again, panicky, when Thor goes to argue again, just for the sake of childishly disagreeing. “Easy and simple, I swear I’m listening. Go again.”

Thor backs off, not without making a huffy noise – proof that, however wisdom and tragedy have changed him, it hasn’t changed him that much –, and he tries to explain his revelation to Tony a second time, now, as quickly as he can.

“If Maximoff wasn’t the one showing me my future, whatever was speaking through her was.” Thor summarizes, efficiently and impatiently. “The Mind Stone must have been warning us about what was destined to come – but since it was just one, out of the six Infinity Stones, the information it gave me was incomplete.”

“You think the Mind Stone spoke to you—” Tony prompts, to make sure he’s following Thor’s logic correctly.

“But the message came from somewhere only the Time Stone could touch. The future.” Thor nods, affirming. “There might be six Infinity Stones, but much like the Aether affects space, and space affects time – the Stones must be connected by one… mind, between them. And if one is affected by being used by a host—”

“The information is transmitted to the others.” Tony concludes. “Like a network.”

“You have used the power of the Mind Stone before.” Thor whispers, intensely. “You know how to access it. If you can find a way to recreate it, like you did with the Tesseract, and like the Sorcerers in the Sanctum do with the artifacts they use – we could go to battle with items capable of diverting the powers of the Stones—”

“Which would give us a bigger advantage.” Tony blinks owlishly, feeling like the floor has just been ripped from under him. “Thor, it’s a great idea, but I can’t do it without the Mind Stone here. It worked before because we had the scepter, and we had JARVIS—"

“But even without JARVIS, there are registers of the components of the Stone somewhere in your files, and there are registers of its use, by someone who had the Stone in them, as part of their being.”

Tony sighs mournfully. “You mean Vision.”

“Yes.” Thor says. “But not only Vision.”

Oh.

 

Oh.

 

(No.)

 

“Thor…” Tony says, face contorted into a mockery of a smile, brows furrowed and nose flared, an ugly, jagged smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, a reflex deep-settled of attempting to hide his pain under a false mask of humor failing miserably when the hurt is already simmering so close to the skin. “Thor, if what you’re saying—”

“There is a chance we could have overlooked something—”

“If what you’re saying is that you’re trying to get me—”

“Something that you didn’t to look for, when you made your first attempt – but there might be something left in your computers—"

“You want me to look at Ultron.” Tony says, short and dry, like it’s clawing at his throat, like metal hooks tearing flesh.

“Yes.” Thor admits, expression closed off. “But not just Ultron. Him, Vision, whatever is left of JARVIS, because if the Stone—”

“I can’t do it, Thor.” Tony interrupts, pained, the mere mention of what is left of JARVIS enough to make him feel like he’s having a heart attack. “There is nothing left.”

That’s not true.

Not quite. And Tony knows it.

Thor does too. Tony can see it in his eyes.

But this time, he doesn’t drop it.

“Stark.” Thor calmly says. “I know this is hard for you. But we have to do it. If the Stone tried to say something through Maximoff, it could have tried to say something through any other host it had, and if we know how to use it, we have a better chance of winning.”

Tony knows this, damn it.

He knows.

But—

“I would have asked Banner.” Thor says, gently. “If I didn’t know it should be you.”

Fuck.

(His vision, right?)

Fuck.

“What are you expecting me to find?” Tony asks, helpless, truly at loss about what he should do.

Thor, in all seriousness, replies:

“Something that will explain why you are the one the Infinity Stones are trying to reach.”

 

Tony stares.

 

Thor stares back.

 

No. It’s gotta be a coincidence.

 

(Tony.)

 

(There was no other way—)

 

Tony opens his mouth, not even knowing what he is about to say, body moving before he thinks about what he is doing—

When suddenly, the alarm blares.

What is that.” Thor roars, surprised and immediately on alert, body poised dangerously ready to attack, despite not having his weapon on him. It’s a testament to how out of touch they are with each other, that Thor has never been to the Compound before during a crisis, and so, has never heard the alarm ring like this.

“Distress alarm.” Tony replies, breathlessly. “We’re assembling.”

The alarm recedes in volume, though it continues to sound, undoubtedly louder outside the workshop in other to alert the others, but FRIDAY comes in, urgently relaying information:

“Boss, we have a situation.”

“Talk to me, baby girl.”

“Agent Carter has just gotten a message from another SHIELD agent in DC. They said there’s a riot happening and the crowd seems to be occupied fully by civilians, but they are wearing masks and seem to be organized in some sort of formation. It is not, according to the source, a pacific movement. The agent fears it might become violent.”

“Show me.”

The holo screens come up with coordinates and id from the sender of the warning, Agent Cameron Klein – situated in Washington, DC. – with accompanying shaky camera footage of a large mob walking down an avenue, carrying objects set in flames, chanting loudly and out of sync in a way that makes it impossible to understand what they are saying.

One person, the only one Tony can see apart from the rest, is carrying a sign that says Judgment Day.

Shit.

“This is not good.” Tony moans, looking frantically to the screen, trying to take in as many details as he can. “Not good. Not good.”

“Boss.” FRIDAY interjects. “It has been reported they have set fire to abandoned vehicles on their trajectory. Agent Klein fears they might be marching with the intent of causing harm.

Tony, readily, waves his hand at the screen and brings out a map, zooming in the current location where the mob can be found at, observing the path created by the collection of red dots that indicate the burning sites that have been identified, and tries, as quickly as he can, to establish a possible interception point based on where they are more likely to go.

But all it takes is one look in the direction they’re heading, and it’s not hard to guess.

“We need to go.” Tony urges, slapping Thor in the arm in quick, frantic movements, to call on his attention. “Get the team. We need to go to DC, now.”

“I don’t understand.” Thor cries, even if he does follow Tony quickly out of the shop and up the stairs, voice frantic with confusion. “What is happening?”

Tony heaves as he climbs up, heaves as he dashes as quickly as he can towards the private areas, and it’s horrible, how quickly he falls out of breath, how much it hurts for him to exert such force, how numb his arm and chest feel even though his legs and stomach hurt like hell from his sudden movement.

And the worst of it all is how jagged he sounds, how broken, how fearful of what is to come when he tells Thor:

“Someone is going to burn the White House.”

Notes:

Told you we weren't done talking about the consequences happening outside the Compound yet.

And it's nice, being able to talk about Thor. But can you see another subject lurking at the edges of this chapter, an issue who is slowly sneaking its way into the story, before anyone, even Tony, notices it's there?

I hope you do. It's a very heated argument, that one. I can't wait to talk about it ;)

As for other updates, good news, friends! If you didn't know yet, the gift fic I've mentioned in the past two chapters, with the prompt Steve's POV of the reunion in the Helipad, from Chapter 4, is finally up and you can check it out HERE! Make sure to leave a comment there too, to let me know what you think! If you were interested in another prompt, don't worry, we're gonna have other opportunities to discuss other POV's in the future, I assure you :)

For now, that is all, my friends! As always, thank you for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting, and if you like my writing, please consider checking out this post or this post to see other ways you can support me or request something!

See you in the next one!

Chapter 14: Chapter 14

Notes:

Happy 2020, everybody! Did you miss me? I certainly missed you! I am so happy to be back! We are finally here after a very long pause, I am very eager to get back into it, and we better not waste any time before going back into that sweet, sweet angst we've all been needing.

Let's get into some very serious issues here.

Finding balance again in a dynamic who has suffered a massive break is a huge problem. This is an issue I've had not just with Marvel, but with other kinds of media too, the lack of care in showing just how much having trust issues involving
other members of your team will affect how well you work together. Sure, I dig the 'when we fight together, we just fit' trope as much as the next person, but as I said, we're going for realistic here - do you have any idea how hard it is to fall back into rhythm with someone you've had to leave behind and now have adjusted to living without? If you do, I'm sure you can imagine where my frustration comes from, seeing how... put together is not the right term, but how easily they accept each other's improvisations, shall I say. How understanding they are, how there's barely any frustration or difficulty in understanding why someone did what they did.

It's very heartwarming and rewarding to see a team fight together again when they've just had a nostalgic, welcoming reunion, surely - but that is not the case here, is it? I feel like we need to talk a little bit about that.

Not only that, let's also explore one of the various possibilities of responses the public could have had to Thanos' decimation - a possibility that would have been explored in canon, or so I've heard, but never made the cut and it was, sadly, stored away in early concept stages. I think it's a very good angle to analyze, a very fair one, and, to be honest, a very scary one, and it wouldn't feel right to ignore it. I feel like it would be dishonest of me not to show you that this is a very real possibility of a reaction, how bad it can get - so I'm not gonna hide it. If you are a person who likes post-apocalyptic stories, like I am, you simply cannot ignore that even though we try our best, some things are simply bound to happen.

I hope you enjoy this chapter, friend! Once again, it's very nice to be back, sorry for the wait, and here's to another year of great stories, meta, debates, and a lot angst ;)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“You’re not flying to DC.”

Tony halts, almost knocking against a wall; His hands too busy placing the nanite casing onto his chest to protect him from the impact, his feet unsteady from exhaustion and the rush of adrenaline pumping in his veins.

It takes a long, long second for the words to catch up to him.

The blinks owlishly, struggling to readjust himself into the present while also rushing through every motion – and when he finally does, it is astonishing the level of indignation he feels flooded with.

“Excuse me.”, he seethes, feeling unreasonably offended.

“You’re not flying the armor to DC.” Natasha orders again, through gritted teeth, as she paces in heavy steps towards the elevator. “Get in the Jet.”

“Why the hell would I—”

“Carter and Ross are joining us, we need people to help contain the crowd.” She cuts off, words razor sharp. “Get in the Jet, Tony.”

Tony stands there for a second, baffled, annoyed, and he watches Thor, Nebula, and Rocket stomp to the elevator to stand beside Natasha, all of them rigid and anxious, the doors held open by seemingly just Natasha’s sheer force of will, as if waiting on Tony to make his mind.

The klaxon blares. Blares. A steady, maddening, forceful pulsing pattern inside his eardrums.

Tony goes to argue, almost on instinct, but the look in Natasha’s eyes catches him off guard. It hits somewhere deep inside his chest that shouldn’t be feeling as tender as it is, a shock that comes unprompted and overwhelming, sudden hopelessness at the sight of her face so open, so pleading, that sharp edge between order and supplication.

He just… stops. He doesn’t know what a more appropriate response would be.

And she waits for him. The elevator doors stay open, for far longer than they should, a silent challenge in and of itself.

Immediately, he is consumed by the worst of indecisions. Flying in the suit would be faster; Objectively, he can use the boosters in his armor and reach DC earlier, and start an intervention before the others arrive and scare the crowd. Because, he reminds himself, that is a problem. Tony might have had time to get used to the idea that the rest of the Avengers are back, sort of, but the general public certainly hasn’t. They don’t even have the press or gossip blogs and magazines to mass-produce quick and assertive headlines monitoring the reaction of the public, nor the reliability of Stark Industries PR and marketing department to analyze how the news of his old teammates back on Us soil were received. As far as Tony knows, as far as the public knows – Something came out from the sky, Tony went into space to follow it, and out of the blue, hours later, half of the world just… disappeared. There has been no explanation, no rhyme or reason to the devastating loss that everyone had just been forced to experience.

Tony keeps meaning to see the message Rogers sent out to the public and he keeps forgetting, because everything is happening so fast, so much – he has no idea what Rogers has said, how could he have possibly explained this decimation in just a quick video sent out for whatever survivors might be listening. He knows Rogers must have mentioned Thanos, because Lang said so, but how can people understand that, being blinded by grief and fear, after two days of hiding around in rubble and death-filled streets, trembling in fear that another purge might come at any second and no one had any way of knowing that it wouldn’t?

The people are scared. That’s what’s happening. They are scared.

So it could be better if he just flew by himself first, in the armor, to DC. Rhodey could come with him, too. People know them, people know they can count on them – if the shock of seeing Tony alive happens, it might be for the best, even; The SHIELD personnel seemed to be very taken aback that Tony had survived. Hopefully, the crowd would react in the same way, just long enough for them to find a way to stop the riot and neutralize any possible threats.

After two years of absolutely no contact, seeing Captain America, Black Widow, Ant-Man, Hawkeye — These people have very publicly and very loudly rejected the pleas of the nation for transparency and accountability. That’s how the headlines were written after Leipzig, how people screamed their questions at Tony’s face every time he stepped out of the house for the first six months.

Mr. Stark, what can you tell us about your teammates, sir? Mr. Stark, how do you explain Captain America turning his back on his country? Mr. Stark, do you believe you can defend us without the rest of the Avengers team, sir? Mr. Stark? Who is going to defend America now? Mr. Stark?

Tony has heard it over and over again. He’s seen the news. Now, a mob that marches to burn down the White House… Tony has no idea what kind of intentions they have while they do it. He doesn’t know if he can trust the chance that those people will be glad to see them, because they might not be.

And he knows all of this. He knows.

But the doors are open, and Natasha is waiting for him.

Tony hasn’t experienced that in a long, long time.

(Wrong time.)

He shouldn’t be mulling over this.

(It’s the wrong time.)

Rhodey scares the living hell out of Tony when he suddenly walks in, the War Machine suit following close behind, and he doesn’t even hesitate in walking past Tony and into the elevator, all of them shuffling easily to allow room for the bulk of the armor, still leaving an open space right in the middle, a space Tony could easily fit into.

“Tony.” Rhodey calls, in a cautious voice. “C’mon. We gotta stick together.”

Tony is an idiot. God, he’s an idiot, and he dreads this, he dreads it every single step of the way, into the elevator and up the helipad, even with the comforting presence of Rhodey by his side. He dreads the weight of Natasha’s stare, the poignant silence from Nebula and Rocket, Thor’s inquiring gaze – he dreads it all, but he does it anyway.

(When will he learn?)

It’s an unnerving experience, going out on the helipad when the Compound is empty. The Jet, lit up by the lights of the platform, stands menacing and deceptively safe, even though they will be flying mostly blind; And as its turbines begin to spin, the cutting sound of the motors and the sudden rush of the blow of ice-cold air makes Tony’s ears and lungs hurt, his breath leaving out a wisp of white smoke as he exhales, hands and face immediately burning with the unexpected low temperature of the outdoors.

He’s in his sleeping T-shirt, still. It’s June.

The cold reminds him of the cave at night. Of Siberia. He trembles, not just from the chill.

On any other day, this hangar would be bustling with energy, people running around helping to load the cargo into the transport, people going over weather forecasts and final briefings – but it’s just them now. Them, running like baby chicks all over the place, desperate and vulnerable, fighting to remain strong despite being completely hopeless. Tony hears the muttered curse Rocket exhales, he hears the tremble in Natasha’s breath intake, he knows the rush in Rhodey’s steps is not just from the anxiety. The cold has caught them all off guard. By unspoken agreement, pride or efficiency, by fear or whatever it might be, they don’t talk about it, and hurry to meet the others inside, shivering in silence, skin breaking into goosebumps and teeth clattering between locked jaws, limbs stiff like a stone.

He’s surprised to see Bruce in the Jet, rattled and sleep mussed as he is. He wrings his hands together, knees bouncing anxiously where he sits already strapped down by two security belts, eyes wild with fear. He’s still in his pajamas too.

“Bruce.” Tony breathes, trembling. “You can’t go like this.”

Bruce shouldn’t go at all. Should he? No. Maybe, he doesn’t know, oh God. Why is this happening.

“You don’t have any armor.” Tony stresses, panicking. “You’re in pajamas.

“So are you.” Bruce points out, in a strange mixture of pure fact and nervous admittance. “Tony, we’ve got no time. We have to move.”

“You’re gonna freeze.” Tony says, but as he stands there, divided, the others rush in too, all scrambling to gather their bearings and settle as quickly as possible, grabbing weapons and finding seats with none of the elegance they once had, when they were a team and knew how to navigate through each other’s paces. Now, they’re scattered, and they bump into each other painfully at every single move, like ants scrambling beneath the hot laser of a magnifying glass.

A hand lays heavy on his shoulder, and he turns in a wide movement, ready to plead to Rhodey for… something, for any form of assistance, and he’s surprised to find not Rhodey, but Nebula behind him, her fingers tight on his clavicle and her eyes as dark as the sky.

She says nothing, but she doesn’t have to.

With just enough strength for it to be painful, she carefully directs him away from Bruce, guiding him to the benches on the opposite side, behind the occupied control chairs. Tony is so out of it he can’t even find the strength to protest. He simply watches, as Rhodey and Barton occupy the first chairs, ready to pilot, and right behind them sit Natasha and Rogers, with two other command chairs empty beside them. He would go there and sit next to them, but he’s not sure he can, and Nebula pushes him down the benches with such finality that he simply follows the movement, and as she sits beside him, he feels like he’s being monitored; and because it’s Nebula, because Bruce already looks beyond himself with discomfort, Tony feels oddly compelled to comply with Nebula’s guidance, simply watching as Thor takes upon himself to sit beside Bruce without a single word, Stormbreaker between his hands, the blade resting on the floor between Thor’s feet.

“Who’s in DC?” Rogers asks, as they all shuffle quickly to secure seatbelts to what they all know its gonna be a very difficult journey. He’s in his Captain America suit, all rattled and ragged, dirty and dark, and Tony struggles to keep his breathing even and stifle down a very undignified response at the sight of it.

“Six agents, including Cameron Klein, the one who sent in the call.” Barton replies, voice gruff with disuse, muddled by sleep, but eyes sharp, as he presses buttons and pushes levers with an efficiency and single-minded focus Tony had almost forgotten Barton could have. “We’ll close in at the coordinates he provided.”

“Which are?”

“The White House.” Barton twists his lips in shameful admittance. “We won’t get there in time to stop them.”

Tony can see the dread creep into Rogers just by his posture, the stiff angle of his shoulders, and he knows exactly what it feels like, because his chest tightens in the exact same way, almost like his lungs are collapsing again.

“Any report on weapons?” Rogers asks.

“Baseball bats, pipes, and other blunt objects. No firearms yet, but we can’t be sure. Fire and explosives of some kind, definitely. I’m willing to bet it’s alcohol bottles, not any kind of professional equipment.”

That means confront. It means threat of violence. It’s not so much the idea of a fight that scares him – even in smaller numbers, they are a group of highly skilled people, and they’ve faced worse with a lot less. The terrifying thing is the chance to cause harm. Because these are not Chitauri invaders. They are not Thanos. They’re just people. They’re not even Nazis, they’re just common people, and even the slightest moment of distraction means civilian casualties, and that’s everything Tony has been fighting against for literal years. It’s what they destroyed their team over. They have weapons but they can’t use them, not like this – they don’t need swords, they need shields, but shields will not help to make the crowd stop rioting when all they want is blood.

Tony freezes.

Shields.

(Steve has no shield.)

Oh, fu—

(His shield.)

(His shield is in the vault.)

(His shield.)

Fuck.

Tony’s mouth opens without his command, a jolt of instinct he can’t suppress fast enough to avoid the movement altogether, but no words actually make past his lips; His breath catches, throat closing in like he’s swallowed a bee, uncertainty clawing at him like gashes of knives, shame burning hot at his nape.

What could he say? Steve, would he call? Your shield. I have your shield. Why would he – How could he just admit that? He should say it, because truth is Rogers is defenseless without it. Well, not defenseless, but definitely more vulnerable, and it’s not – it’s not safe to have him fight without it. How did he – How did he fight against Thanos’ army? God, did he fight them with his bare hands, no protection? How could that happen?! Why is Natasha’s suit brand new, how can she look like she’s had her battle gear maintained and updated and Rogers looks like he’s been dragged to hell and back?

Tony has his shield. Shit. Fuck. Tony has his shield, he needs – he needs to say something.

“Rogers.” Tony calls, before he can think about it, and as Rogers turns around in his seat to look at him, Tony presses his lips together in hesitant consideration, not knowing how he can possibly admit that he’s kept the shield for this long, hidden and safe, despite the radio silence between them.

Rogers stares at him, face neutral, his eyes giving nothing away beyond his needle-sharp focus, patiently waiting as Tony racks his brain for the words. Tony can’t find any. The snapping of seatbelts clicking together never ceases, menial background noise to a moment so tense that it shouldn’t even be able to hold in such a high-pressure situation like this – and they stand there for a moment suspended in time, a tentative moment where neither wants to be the one to break the silence and dare to cause damage their unexpected truce, and Tony feels fearful, cowardly, like he’s on the cusp of surrendering something that he shouldn’t, not to Rogers, not to anyone.

He knows what it says about him, that he kept the shield. He knows how it shows how… how he’s such a—

In a split second, Rogers’ gaze steers away from Tony’s own, locking somewhere over his shoulder, and his brows do a complicated movement, raising and pinching low almost at the same time, giving him a constipated expression, sour and displeased. Tony turns, confused, and finds Carter and Ross approach in a haste, jogging towards the Jet, breathless and in disarray, and just like that, the moment is lost.

The awareness of their surroundings comes crashing down on him, the sounds flooding back into his ears, and his cowardice, his holdups against being vulnerable in front of Rogers or any of the others, it all gets pushed to the corner of his mind as he sees how awful Agent Ross looks, with deep, dark circles under his eyes, his usually gentle and approachable expression clouded by worry, and the strong grip Carter has around her holster is more than enough evidence for her tension, even if her face betrays nothing but steely determination.

They climb up into the Jet and dodge Tony without thinking twice, barely acknowledging him with quick nods before they sit themselves next to Rogers and Natasha in the command chairs, as if nothing unusual is going on. Tony watches them with a strange sort of helplessness, weirded out by their presence in such a delicate matter; When he can’t help but feel that they’re…  strangers. Tony has never fought alongside Carter or Ross, and even if he doesn’t doubt that they are skillful in what they do – whatever it is that they do – it’s… difficult to think that not only he will have to work again with the team that has long ago lost all the trust it had in its own, but also with these two people he has never exchanged more than a couple of words with. Not that he can’t do it, he can, he is Iron Man, he’s Tony Stark, and he knows he can because Nebula is living proof that Tony can trust people in the battlefield even if they’re not his team, alright—

But the reality is much harder to accept when it arrives. To be faced with the necessity of it, with the obligation of trusting these people, when he has spent so long relearning how to fight alone, how to make the tough choices even if it killed him inside. He doesn’t have the time to adjust to the idea that this is how it is now, that he’ll have to find a way to make all of these people not to step on each other while trying to help, that they might not be able to finish their mission because they lost their rhythm, they’re completely out of sync.

(It’s the wrong time.)

(It’s wrong, wrong, wrong.)

There’s too many of them. The Jet’s cramped, they are ill-equipped – though they need all the help they can get, he doesn’t know how the crowd can possibly react to them, let alone Nebula and Rocket, should they need to push the civilians back. They have never dealt with a situation like this before, where the people they’re trying to protect are also the hostile force. Tony knows he has no experience in that. Every other time they’ve interacted with the civilians was when they were trying to lead them to safety, when they were willing to listen and be guided; The only exception being, of course, Sokovia, but even then, it was the Iron Legion who had had to deal with broken parts and the rain of stones and dirt thrown their way by an enraged and bitter crowd. How can they deal with this without scaring the civilians, without hurting them, when they’re so intent in hurting others?

Tony can taste the desperation inside the Quinjet, the quick breathing and the skittish gazes, the clenching of hands and the jittery knees – there’s eleven people in this cabin, and the last time Tony fought with at least one of them was years ago, and they weren’t even fighting with each other, they were fighting against each other.

Eleven people, and it still might not be enough.

“Where’s Lang?” Tony blurts, confused.

“We can’t find him.” Natasha says, in an appallingly professional tone.

What.” Tony balks. “Did you lose him? What do you mean you can’t find him? He just… screwed off with the ants or something?!”

“We don’t know. He never came up for the call, and when we checked his room, he wasn’t there.” She clarifies, and instead of being filled with concern, her voice carries a light tilt of curiosity, as if she’s wondering about the mysterious circumstances of Lang’s disappearance not as a problem, but as a puzzle to be solved. “The book he took with him was missing too.”

Strange’s books. Which one had Lang taken?

“You think he found something.” Tony half affirms, half asks, the assumption fearful in his tongue.

“I hope he did, or else he’s gonna have a lot of explaining to do.” She mutters, gruff and annoyed, brows pinched in displeasure.

“And we’ll just leave without him?” Thor frowns, gripping Stormbreaker with cautious strength.

“We got no time to wait for him.” Natasha argues, with sobering finality. “Any longer and our crowd will get out of control. Scott better take care of himself, and keep himself alive until we get back.”

The lights inside the Jet go lower, enveloping them in dark, the default lighting settings when in flight – and instead of being soothing or stealthy, as it once it had felt, it now feels oppressive, dirty and cowardly, as if to hide their faces from each other as they all swallow around nothing and press their lips together in the closes thing they will ever come to a prayer, a plea to the universe that will never be voiced out loud, the useless hope that whatever they may find in DC, that it’ll be something that will not result in tragedy.

The Quinjet cuts through the skies as fast as it dares, drowning in the midst of the foggy cloud of ash and dust, the panels and radars unreliable and unhelpful in every way. Rhodey and Clint have to pilot because they are the only ones who can be trusted with these conditions, the only ones who have the skill and expertise to navigate hostile skies in such speed. And all the while – black is the only thing that greets them. Black, black, and more black, no city lights or stars, not a single beacon to guide them in the night into a safe place; And it’s awful, an experience not even being stranded in space can replicate, this feeling of absolute darkness, like they’ve dropped over the edge of the world into an endless abyss. The cold from outside seeps in through the walls even though the Jet is well insulated, and Tony shivers in his T-shirt, resisting the urge to run his hands through his arms to try and gain some warmth by friction.

The idea is terrifying, the dark, a warning sign to a tragedy they all know its coming but have no way of stopping, the approaching of the end not by the hands of an enemy, but of the world itself, of the universe – depriving them of light, of the right to live beyond the fall of all others who are now gone. Like a taunt – you have survived, but not for long. Tony has taken this same route to DC many times, and though his sense of the passage of time has never been the best, this flight seems to stretch for an eternity, the scant light spots they can see passing by beneath them as they fly not nearly as abundant and frequent enough to be a relief. He can’t be sure if the cities are all losing power or if there’s no people down there, or, if there are, if they’re just hiding in the dark, afraid of being seen. The uncertainty is the worst part, the fear of the worst and the naïve hope for the best, and no way of knowing which is which.

“Tony.” Rogers calls, and Tony’s head snaps in his direction, surprised. They were all so quiet and so stiff that to hear his name is like getting shocked. Even more so, to hear Rogers’ voice. Rogers has taken off his seatbelt, and he’s sitting sideways in his chair, arm hooked over the back and eyes set on Tony, expression unreadable.

“What?”

Rogers gives a quick head signal, almost a nod, as if to prompt Tony to speak – and Tony remembers; A silent inquiry about his abrupt call before the takeoff. The shield. It’s too late now, he realizes, they’ve already left the Compound. The shield is trapped in the vault, Tony can’t even do anything. In the exact same second, he feels himself be swallowed by guilt, ashamed that his stupid holdups about Rogers would stop him from getting the protection he needs, even at the cost of Tony’s so damned fragile image, his… ridiculously confusing feelings on Rogers.

Tony can’t do this. Not now.

Not ever, maybe.

He—

Everyone is listening. Rhodey, Pepper, everyone. No one knows, and they’re all listening.

Tony can’t do this. Not now.

“Your suit is destroyed.” Tony says quickly, aiming for arrogance, but it falls short – he can hear the tremble in the syllables, the concern he tried so hard to kill off and never managed to. “How are you gonna fight like this?”

Rogers’ lips twist in what almost looks like pain, but doesn’t seem surprised or put off by the question. “It’s not a problem. It holds up fine.”

“Why didn’t T’Challa upgrade your suit?” Tony asks – and Rogers’ back straightens like Tony has just said something alarming, like he didn’t know Tony knew about T’Challa and Wakanda.

“You knew.” Rogers exhales, like it’s a revelation.

“I didn’t.” Tony admits. Half-lies. He’s suspected, but he made damn sure that he would never be sure; That is until Tony vanished into space, and FRIDAY caught Rogers and the others invading the Compound in his absence and running off with Rhodey and Bruce to battle. “But if you went all the way down to Wakanda, how could you fight Thanos in that?”

Rogers makes an awfully long pause, face displeased. “It doesn’t matter. It might be damaged, but it’s good protection.”

“You don’t have a shield.” Rogers expression closes off— Shit, fuck, fuck, why can’t he just shut the hell up, what is wrong with him, Goddammit!

Tony sees Rhodey’s face turn a bit to the side, like he wants to look back and stare at Tony, but he can’t because his eyes are glued to the panels – but Tony can tell he’s listening, and so are Bruce and Thor, not even subtle in the way they almost lean forward to watch the stunted interaction.

“He had one.” Natasha intervenes, voice cutting, and Tony jolts with the unexpected interruption. “But he decided to leave it behind.”

Tony’s heart stutters in his chest, afraid, exposed.

She knows.

She knows about Siberia.

They all do.

An irrational fear grips him tight, seizing his breath.

Rogers throws her a look so angry and annoyed it’s shocking how little she reacts. Natasha merely turns slight around, just enough that she can look Tony in the eyes over her shoulder, and, with surprising caution, she says:

“T’Challa made him a shield, for the battle.” She clarifies, suspiciously slow, dragging the words a little, infusing them with a meaning that Tony’s muddled mind is too frantic to properly identify. “But he decided he didn’t want it.”

T’Challa. T’Challa made him a shield.

She doesn’t—

Oh.

God, she… she doesn’t know. She doesn’t – it’s not about Siberia. She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know.

(…doesn’t she?)

He’s not sure. Would – Would Rogers have told her? His first instinct is to say yes, because deep down, the ever-bitter part of Tony believes Rogers shares everything with all of them, except Tony, even though Tony knows that’s not true. Rogers is a paranoid, mistrustful bastard, and Tony knows not even Natasha, who has been as loyal to him as anyone can possibly be, knows what the hell goes on in his brain the entire time. Barnes is – was – the only exception to the rule, he supposes. The only one who got to have all of Rogers, probably ever. Would he tell her about what happened? Would he—

Would he really be capable of telling Natasha why he left the shield behind, the circumstances of the fight that preceded it? Would he tell her what Barnes had done, would he tell her the truth, when he never did it to Tony?

Tony is not sure he wants to know.

Natasha keeps looking at him, as if she’s waiting for something.

She knows. Or… no? Does she? He can’t tell.

“That’s stupid.” Tony says, voice emotionless, as if someone is speaking for him, manipulating his body without his permission. “Without a shield, you’re exposing yourself.”

(You didn’t seem to care before.)

He needs to shut up – he’s being a hypocrite. Tony didn’t give a single shit about Rogers being defenseless when he ordered him to drop the shield in Siberia; quite the opposite. He’d wanted Rogers to go fuck himself, to leave without a single thing, to strip him of whatever he could to make him hurt, seeing as he had failed to take Barnes out of his grasp. It’s his fault Rogers has no shield.

Tony averts his gaze, and he finds Bruce looking at him like he just lost his mind.

Tony kind of agrees with him, and huffs a very tight, very troubled breath.

“It’s better if I don’t have it.” Rogers says, surprisingly mellow, and Tony is idiotic enough to look back at him again, like he can’t help it. “T’Challa’s shield was Vibranium, I couldn’t bring it out of Wakanda.”

“Actually, you could have, and it would have helped a lot.” Bruce mutters, mostly to himself, just to try to wave off the awkward intensity stifling the cabin, but to no success.

“I could hurt someone with it.” Rogers says, and he means it, Tony knows what he means, and Tony fucking – Tony hates him, goddammit, how can he – He’s looking at Tony, he’s not even subtle about it, and they’re not having this discussion now, not here, not ever. He’s not doing this. He’s not.

“Isn’t that the opposite of what a shield should do?” Nebula inquires with a stony face, oblivious.

“Not in his hands.” Barton half laughs, and Tony feels extremely, irrationally offended by it.

Barton doesn’t know. He can’t possibly know. He’s an asshole, but not this much of an asshole, Tony refuses to believe it.

Rogers hasn’t told them.

The idea doesn’t make Tony feel any better.

“Your shield was never recovered, Captain.” Agent Ross says, so blissfully ignorant, and Tony has to resist the urge to flinch by basically transforming himself into a statue where he sits. “Maybe it would have been better to bring a spare, if you had it.”

Of course. Of course they never recovered it.

Tony is the one who hid it.

“I don’t need it.” Rogers says, with a very sharp edge of annoyance, not seeming to care much about the loss of his once most prized weapon. “Our mission is to stop the riot and clear the area, not attack the civilians and make things worse. We just have to scare them off.”

“We’re not planning to do any harm, but we should be prepared for the chance that we might need to use force.” Carter reasons, coolly.

“And we should be thinking fast, we’re closing in soon.” Rhodey calls over his shoulder, curt and loud. “We have fifteen minutes. We’re gonna go lower so we can see what’s happening, so hold on, we might have some trouble with the route, we could hit something.”

Shit.

“Alright.” Rogers acquiesces, shifting so neatly into his leader persona that it’s almost like the confusing, too revealing conversation that had just transpired had never occurred at all. “We have no satellite images, so we gotta be careful. Locate all groups, don’t let them sneak in on you, and keep them calm.”

“If the building is burning we’re gonna have to put it out.” Bruce points out, a deep frown etched into his brow. “How can we do that if we can’t reach the fire department?”

“The water tanks. They should be working, if no one has intentionally destroyed them.” Carter reasons. “The building has automatic fire-detecting alarms, but if for some reason they don’t work, we need to go straight to the source.”

“Do we know if the President is still in there?” Rhodey asks, looking over his shoulder with a troubled expression.

“We don’t know if anyone is in there.” Tony admits, bitterly. “All comms are off, never got a response.”

“Then we might be dealing with a hostage situation.” Agent Ross points out gravely.  

Rogers nods, but he looks like he has just bitten a lemon. “Then our priority is to keep the crowd calm and try to make them cooperate.”

“How are we supposed to do that?”

“We find out why they’re angry in the first place, and we find a way to convince them it’s not worth threatening to destroy the White House over it.”

“Hey, everyone get ready back there.” Rhodey warns, raising his voice to make sure he’s gonna be heard even without turning around and taking his eyes off the flight controls. “We’re getting low and we can already see the lights coming up.”

Anxious, they crane up their necks to peer through the glass.

Seeing lights appear in the distance, suddenly, is no longer comforting.

It is a living, breathing, burning nightmare.

High in the air and inside a heavy-duty aircraft, they can’t hear any sound coming from the direction of the rapidly approaching destination, but they don’t have to. The visual is enough to stir up memories of chaos old and new, of screams and terror and flashes of war Tony has been familiar with since Howard’s old film reels from WWII. Along the way, spots of flashing lights denunciate the trail of destruction the crowd has left behind, setting abandoned cars aflame, heaps of distorted metal burning in furious blaze as a warning sign to anyone who dares to come close. Even inside the cabin of the Jet, Tony swears he can feel the smell of charred rubber, the gleam of broken glass shards on the floor of the avenues, and all he can remember is the boy, the boy in front of the hospital, and his stomach drops straight to the sole of his feet at the idea that inside those cars, there might have been bodies, and the mob simply set them on fire along with everything else, like the scorched remains inside the airplane—

(Ash to ash. Dust to dust.)

The crowd can hear them coming, even though they scream and cry incessantly as they march, and some of them turn around to look at the sky, eyes squinting to see past the engulfing darkness, and as soon as they realize they’ve got company, they start screaming louder, ripping through their lungs and throats with all their strength, some of them jolting and jumping like they’ve been electrocuted, only to drop everything and run, run into the night, pushing others and dashing between rubble and destruction, wild fear in their eyes, like they’re afraid they’re gonna get hurt.

The others stay. They stay, and scream, scream, and it’s terrifying.

The carry flashlights, lit phones, torches. Torches. The mixture of the mundane and the threat a beam of light guiding them through the freezing dark, a crowd enraged and screaming and begging for something Tony can’t understand, and he — He trembles, he shudders at the mere idea of what these people might possibly want, what has brought them here, how furious and beyond reasoning they are, chucking things into the air in futile attempts to hit them, simply to appease the desire to unleash their rage, even though it’s obvious they cannot reach the Jet with a simple throw. They have burning flags held high, signs, hands raised in plea, a hazy cacophony with no rhyme or reason, and it scares him, not to know what they want, not knowing what to do to make them stop.

Tony doesn’t know how many of them are there. The dark doesn’t let him see right. His panic doesn’t let him see right. They’re loud enough, they’re enraged enough; And Tony can’t hurt them, none of them can, but they’re not meant for this, they’re not mean to fight people, to fight their own, they’re meant to keep aliens, not this, never this.

He can see the White House coming closer tall and not nearly as opulent as it should seem as it’s completely dark, a vision of horror movies Tony never thought he would see come true, as people crowd at the gates and shake the bars so hard he can see them wobble, climbing on each other’s shoulders to get past the barrier, to reach the building. He doesn’t know if the White House is empty. It might not be. No lights are one, not that he can see, but that doesn’t mean anything. These people don’t care. The ones that charge forward, almost fuming at the mouth and with blinding rage in their eyes, they set fire to trees in the square and break car windows and buildings with pipes and bricks, not minding if they hurt each other, unruly and unraveled and beyond whatever reason Tony can comprehend.

Further back from the gates, in the middle of the square that faces the House, there’s a man, balancing dangerously on top of a statue of a man on a horse, gesticulating wildly and screaming towards a crowd that surrounds him and screams back in despair. They hug against one another, all huddled together for warmth and comfort, and they cry, raiding their heads towards the sky, some clasping their hands together in front of them in the universal gesture of pleading.

Praying. There’s people praying in this crowd.

They are not organized. They – All these people, they’re not here for a reason. Not a single one, at least; They didn’t come here all together. This isn’t a gang, or an army, or any other kind of delimited group, these are strangers, all in search for answers, for vengeance or penance, redemption or opportunity, and they’re letting themselves get swept away under the pressure, under the raging heat of the crowd amidst this freezing cold—

Their God has forsaken them. Their rulers have gone silent. No one is watching in the dark.

So they pillage and destroy, they rage and they beg, all at once, all for nothing.

“How are we gonna stop them?” Natasha asks, her lips twisting in anxious pondering. “If we’re not careful people are going to get hurt.”

“They’re gonna break the gate.” Bruce whispers, distressed.

“You got any water we can throw at them?” Rocket suggests. “It’ll get rid of the torches.”

“We are not attacking a crowd of civilians with water.” Rhodey snaps, brows furrowed in indignation.

“We’re gonna have to attack them with somethin’.” Rocket argues. 

“We have to scare them off.” Rogers growls through gritted teeth, unbuckling his belts and straps so quickly that no one can even move to stop him, stepping heavily through the cabin, ignoring their stares. “Get the Jet down, away from the crowd. Try to put out the fires where you can, be careful not to let it spread. Thor, with me.”

What?” Half of them exclaim, stupefied by the sudden order – and even more shocked when Rogers just fucking slams his fist on the button to open the cabin door, the Jet’s hydraulic system hissing and wringing, a gust of cold wind slamming in their faces like a punch, and the reflex of pushing away and closing their eyes is too strong to stop, making it impossible for them to react fast enough.

And just like that, as the Jet hovers over the White House, Steve Rogers just fucking jumps out of the ramp into the glittering mob below.

“What the hell!” Rocket shouts, holding for dear life to his seat. “Is he crazy?!

Shit!” Tony blurts, struggling with his belts and scrambling to get off the seat, pressing into the nanite case with such vigor he almost hurts his fingers. “Dammit, Rogers!”

The armor envelops him quickly, but the fumbling with the belts slows him down. Thor pushes away his own belts and grabs onto Stormbreaker much quicker, following Rogers over the open gate and also dropping quickly to the garden below, without thinking twice, and it pisses Tony off even more how easy it is for the others to fall into Rogers pace so eagerly and thoughtlessly. The rest of them start to move too, some quickly, some not so quickly, stunned by the unexpected action, but they all finish gearing up and start preparing themselves to fall into position, as Tony finally manages to get himself free and runs towards the open exit, ready to jump.

“I’m gonna leave the Jet on top of the House if we’re gonna speed this up!” Clint yells, over the sound of the turbines.

“Whatever, just make it quick!” Tony yells back, and in the last second, the helmet closes itself around his head, HUD blinking into existence immediately, and he throws his arms up and lets himself fall.

Getting closer doesn’t make things any better.

They sweat and shiver, a paradox of reaction between the flaming impulse of their predicament and the total and utter lack of preparation for the weather, the glacial bite of the lightless night catching them all off guard, their clothes all too summery and light for what Tony suspects is a below-40-degrees temperature outside.

Tony gives a quick fly overhead and it’s shocking how as soon as people notice he’s there, they chuck things at him, like mean throwing stones at birds for fun. Except this is hateful, powerful, pieces of metal and rock that could do serious damage if aimed well enough, and even though he’s far out of their reach, the projectiles have to go back down after they lose impulse, and he watches, horrified, as people below scramble to not get hit by their own allies’ attacks as the sharp and blunt objects just plummet right back down onto the massive wave of people.

They are frightened.

They are lost. They can’t hurt them, they can’t – it’ll scare them more, it’ll make them hate them more.  They’re here to help, they’re the only ones who can, if civilians start to riot against them now there is no telling how dangerous this all will be. They can’t afford it, they need the civilians help, Now, more than ever, they have to hold back, even when the crowd itself is not holding back at all.

Rogers is on the front garden of the White House, unsurprisingly fine and perfectly healthy despite having dropped from a literal airplane with no chute, looking small and powerless as the crowd roars and brandishes their torches and burning flags and signs from the other side of the gate, like lions clawing through bars, ravenous for the prey just out of reach.

God-fucking-dammit.

There’s people going over the fence with the help of others, jumping over and scrambling to a run as if they were quick enough, they wouldn’t be seen, and if Rogers had his shield, with one quick swing and the impossible physics of that thing, he could have taken them out in no time – but since Rogers has no shield, its Thor who is quickly and frantically grabbing the strays by their clothes and dropping them back on the other side of the gate, trying to hold them back long enough until they can figure out a way to make them step away from the gates.

“They’re gonna jump from the sides.” Tony gasps, but so low no one can hear him, not even in comms, as he hovers just above the House in careful consideration. “They’ll go around, we can’t stop them all.”

Tony looks back to Rogers, out of instinct, hoping to see any sort of hint as to what he should do, a silent command or discreet indication, but he gets nothing. Rogers is not even looking at him. Whatever it is that he’s thinking, he’s thinking hard, eyes glued to the riot in front of him like a deer to a lion, body taut in anticipation to a hit, face distorted into an expression that Tony would almost describe as pained.

Rogers’ plan is – no plan. No plan at all.

“We need you to stop this, right now!” Rogers screams, like a madman, to the crowd.

The crowd doesn’t care. Some of them stop, maybe only now noticing there’s someone already on the other side of the fence, but they are the minority – the rest of them keep shouting, snarling at Rogers’ face, rabid dogs ready to attack.

“We know you’re angry!” Rogers tries to reason, raising his hands lightly, to indicate surrender; But not high enough that he loses the tight coil of tension in his arms, his body still on alert and posed to fight at the slightest indication. “We know you’re scared, that this makes no sense. We know—"

“Who the fuck are you!” One of the men screams, face glistening with sweat, teeth bared; And the others follow him, bellowing angrily at Cap, demanding answers despite it being so clear who it is that stands before them. Cap grew a beard, but his face is still the same, his uniform is the same, he is the same.

I’m Captain America, Tony expects him to say it, but he doesn’t. He just stands there, fists clenched, quietly.

Why won’t he say it?

Say something, Cap, Jesus Christ!

“Who are you to say what we can or can’t do?!” A man screams, spit and sweat flying as he grabs the bars with all his strength, face squeezed between the bars so tightly Tony almost fears he might get his head stuck if he can push it between the gap. “America is dead. It’s all dead. The world is ours now, and we do what we want!

The gates whine as he grabs the bars with his hands and shakes them, other hundreds of hands following suit pushing and pulling like waves, a storm relentless and wreckful.

“I threw away all my life!” Another man screams, voice raw, tears and snot running down his face, reflecting brightly the shine of the fire. “I threw it all for my daughter and I lost her. I lost her! I’m gonna kill them!”

“We’re all going to die!” A woman’s voice comes louder then, and the burning flag in her hands is raised to the sky, fabric torn to pieces and scorched gray. “It’s us or them! It’s us or them!

Who is them? What are they after? What is this for? They don’t get it, they don’t understand that getting into the White House and killing – who, the President? The staff? Who – it won’t… change anything, it won’t help. Tony knows Rogers sent out a message, but did these people even see it, do they know this wasn’t… There is no government anymore. This is bigger than that. These people, their rage, it can’t – it will make it all worse.

He’s gonna get himself killed. Captain America is going to get killed by an angry mob in front of the White House.

Tony doesn’t even think before he reacts.

“Cap!”

He blasts a repulsor towards the ground in desperation, loud and sudden, the impact against the soil exploding rock and dirt in a shocking, sharp sound. The crowd reacts viciously, shouting in fear and surprise, and the turmoil aggravates even worse, as people shuffle and push around to run away from the blast, even though they’re still trapped on the other side of the fence, scared that Tony might aim his next shot at them.

Tony!” Cap screams, rage clawing at his throat, face distorted in reprehension. What the fuck.

“Are you just gonna stand there and get yourself killed?” Tony screams back, voice reverberating through the suit’s modulators.

“You’re scaring them!”

“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to to?!”

The gate rattles and creaks, cries in agony over the pressure, and Tony realizes that it’s going to break. They’re going at it with pipes and bats, bricks and fists, and it’s going to break.

“They’re gonna break through!” Tony warns, face twisting in distress. “I’m gonna douse them with a fire extinguisher.”

“Don’t.” Cap barks. “You’re gonna make them angry!”

“They’re already angry!”

“We have to make them back off!”

“That’s why we scare them!”

The sound of a window breaking coming from behind Tony makes them both jump, and Tony turns around in the air to see a group of people jumping over the fence from the sides and running towards the House running, with canes and hammers in their hands, alcohol bottles and pieces of burning fabric, and fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck—

Where are Barton and Romanov?! Where’s Rhodey and Nebula and Rocket, where’s Bruce, and Carter and Ross, where are they?!

Tony realizes they’ve made a terrible mistake – they forgot to establish comms. Through the armor, Tony can reach Rhodey, Nebula, and Rocket; And that’s it, because they’re the only ones connected to FRIDAY. Rogers has a comm line through Natasha, and Natasha through Clint, and Carter and Ross probably have a line of their own, but Bruce and Thor are completely isolated. They’re out of sync, and they shouldn’t be, they shouldn’t be.

Thor!” Tony has to scream, using all the power in his voice modulators to be heard over the deafening noise of the riot. Thor stops in his tracks, just as he touches the ground from a quick jump from over the fence, and mercifully, he reacts quick – as soon as Tony darts towards the invaders, Thor follows him, no questions asked.

There’s too many of them, and Thor and Tony have to be fast, and, more importantly, careful, not to permanently injure or kill any of these people, no matter how hard they are trying to hurt them. Thor swings his axe with expert precision, and Tony would scream in horror if he didn’t know the guy is skilled enough to make the thing move in just the right way and just enough strength that it won’t accidentally murder anyone. And sure enough – a few people panic, and retreat as soon as they see a large, sharp projectile flying in their direction, which is smart, but others, who are not quite so smart or not coherent enough to do anything other than charge towards the House at max speed, those get a heavy handful of wooden handle hit their legs, or the blunt, solid side of a blade, pushing them over to the floor just painfully so they won’t be tempted to get back up. Tony has his non-lethal propulsors. He fires them at their lowest setting, and even so, people are thrown into the air lightly and topple over, also a good incentive to not get back up; But the bastards are persistent, and Jesus, there’s more and more of them, they must have found something to climb up from, and this is not gonna work for too long.

Inside his helmet, it’s too quiet in the comms, and too loud inside his thoughts.

“FRI, can you get into Cap’s and the others’ comms?” Tony asks, struggling to multitask as he flies through the runaway swarm of people.

“They’re Wakandan tech, Boss.” FRIDAY replies, which means it’s gonna be tough, but it doesn’t mean no.

“Get me in, see what you can do. Quick, baby girl.”

“You got it.”

“When you get through, send Romanov and Barton inside the House to check for hostages!”

“Agents Carter and Ross are on it, Boss.”

“They are?”

“I can reach their communicators easily. They’re regular SHIELD equipment.”

“Yeah, get me on that too.” Tony quickly decides, storing away his annoyance over SHIELD’s lack of security for another, much, much later time.

It takes a mere second – the HUD sends him a handy warning that now more people are connected to his comms, and Tony wastes no time pulling up Carter’s line and making a call.

“Carter? Can you hear me?” He asks, barely after a breath, hoping Carter won’t freak out about suddenly hearing him invade their so-called secure comms.

“Mr. Stark, how are things up there?” Carter replies, delightfully professional and not at all taken aback. If anything is wrong, it's the way she sounds breathless, as if she’d been running right before opening her mouth.

“Angrier and meaner by the minute, thank you for asking.” Tony replies, a little more hysterically than he’d like to admit. “We have anyone in there?”

Carter makes a pointed, deadly pause. “We have twenty-eight hostages.”

Tony curses through gritted teeth, ignoring the way his heart beats one very painful beat, hope dying violently in the crooked, hidden spaces between his ribs.

“Are they in the shelter?”

“Negative.” Carter reports. “They are all staff who stayed behind or brought families to keep them safe. The President isn’t here.”

“Okay, we gotta get them out. I’ll get back to you in a sec.”

Comms are working too slow. Tony blasts towards Cap in a quick turnaround, shouting a don’t let them get too close over his shoulder, trusting Thor will be able to hold back the civilians long enough just so Tony can relay the information about the hostages to Cap, because – because he needs to know.

“We got twenty-eight vulnerable civilians inside that House and if we don’t do something they are going to burn like witches at the stake. We also have another part of the crowd crawling up like pests and determined to pass through us and this whole thing on fire.” Tony hisses, as he lifts his faceplate and stands next to Cap. “So what’s the plan?”

Cap makes a grave pause. “We need to push them back.”

He said this already. God, Tony is – his nerves are on fire, he’s so annoyed, he’s in absolute panic¸ he said this already, so what are they gonna do?

“And how do you wanna do that?” Tony insists, raising his brows in a very exaggerated manner, oozing forcefulness. “If you don’t want to scare them off?”

“I don’t think we’ll have a choice.” Cap somberly admits. “But things are going to get ugly. There’s too many of them – we scare them off too suddenly, they’ll hurt each other when they escape, they’ll trample and swing all over the place, and we have no way of giving them medical aid without any access to rescue services.”

He… he has a point.

“How do we make them back off?” Tony insists.

“We’re working on it.”

We, meaning him, Natasha, and Clint – but that’s ridiculous because Cap is just standing here not doing anything!

“Where are Barton and Romanov then?” Tony inquires.

“Heading North to Lafayette Square. We need to see if that guy on the statue is the leader.”

“They have no leader.” Tony mumbles, clicking his tongue pensively. “They’re just… a bunch of scared children.”

Cap purses his lips like he wants to say something, but won’t let the words fall out of his mouth. Instead, he pauses, for some reason he also looks Tony up and down, like he’s assessing his physical state, and, out of the blue, asks:

“Rhodey?”

Tony blinks, confused.

“Securing the perimeter.” FRIDAY informs, loud enough through the speakers that Cap can most certainly hear it too. “He’s holding the crowd between 17th and 15th streets.”

“What about the back garden?”

“It’s unsupervised.” FRIDAY says regretfully. “It’s possible there are people approaching south, but I’m not sure.”

“They are. They most definitely are.” Tony growls.

“We can’t let them get to the House.” Yes! Yes, Steve, he knows that! “We have to hold them off until we find a way to get them out of here.”

“What the hell are you waiting for?!” Tony yells, opening his hands and arms in an exasperated gesture, irritated beyond belief. “Why should we be standing here? We have to scare them off, that’s the only way they’ll quit! You want me to pepper spray them one by one?!”

“I’m not sending these people to run into the dark and get killed by the cold!” Cap snarls back, his eyes flashing with anger. “There’s women and children out there! There are seniors at the back of the crowd! These people in the front start to retreat fast, the ones at the back get trampled and we can’t get them to medical, not in these conditions!”

Talking won’t help!” Tony steps forward, almost into Cap’s face, gesticulating forcefully just out of frustration of not being able to hit Steve in the face. “A smaller crowd, sure, but these are thousands of people here and many of them have gasoline and matches.”

“We can’t shoot them, we can’t gas them.” Cap levels, a deep crease in the middle of his fiercely scrunched eyebrows, jaw visibly locked hard even beneath the fullness of his beard. “Shooting will cause panic, gas is not an option with our current situation.”

“They’re already jumping the fence.” Tony argues, impatient.

“Then let’s find a way to make them stop.”

Tony clicks his tongue, letting out a harsh breath, looking around desperately for anything that might help him get struck with divine inspiration on how to make this stupid plan work. If he can call it a plan. Truth is, yes, if they can make the crowd stop without running madly, it would be ideal – more than ideal, because these are the first people Tony has seen on the streets ever since he came back from Titan, and there’s quite a lot of them; Not as many as it should, but still a lot, and to have all these people on their side instead of against them its exactly what they need.

Instead of fire and smoke, if they could convince all these people to help, they could have a massive rescue force.

Tony stares at the snarling crowd, considering the people shoved right at the front, the furious, rabid ones, and wonders how this could possibly work with people like them, who are so desperate to take this opportunity, the worst opportunity of all, to inflict pain in response to the loss they all just suffered. Raging enough to destroy a gate with their bare hands.

They need to make them step away from the gates.

“Tony.” Cap calls suddenly, and Tony startles before looking at him, his eyes dragging like they don’t want to be removed from the gate, his brain lagging a few milliseconds behind.

Cap is also staring at the gate. His face is frowny, in deep consideration.

“The gates are holding the perimeter of the House already.” Cap says, with a slight tilt of inquiry in his voice. “Is there any way you can make them step away from it? Ensure they won’t get in?”

“If I try to spray water on them I think Rhodey might actually kill me.” Tony admits.

“What about electricity?”

Tony’s eyes go wide, shocked.

“What?”

“I’m trying not to think of brutal responses, but I’m running out of options.” Cap confesses, with a derisive little smile tugging ever so lightly at the corner of his mouth, no mirth at all in his eyes. “If gas and spray aren’t options, the next pick is tasers. I’d ask Thor to do it, but he’s the God of Thunder, and I actually fear he might kill someone in that crowd.”

“You want me to shock them?”

“Not them.” Cap points to the bars with a tilt of his head. “The gate.”

Oh.

Oh!

“It’s steel.” Tony says, mostly to himself, his mouth running on its own while his brain gets busy with calculations and theories. “Not very conductive.”

“But can you do it?”

Tony looks at Cap, not annoyed for once, appeased by and very aware of the assured and surprisingly trusting gaze in his blue eyes.

Tony wants to question this, question himself; He can feel the inkling of insecurity swimming around the edges of his rational thoughts, shoved temporarily aside by the focus and the panic required to keep up with the situation at hand, but it’s not nearly strong enough for him to grasp properly and worry about it. It’s just… something in there, hidden deep. He feels like there’s something happening here, between him and Cap, and he can’t quite put his finger into it – it’s not familiarity, that’s not it, but it’s not… It’s not detachment.  Tony thought he would feel detached. And to be fair, for a second there, right when Cap jumped from the Jet, he actually felt that way.

But this is not it. It’s not – it’s not trust, but… It’s… something. It’s something, and Tony can’t grasp it, not fast enough, and it all gets drowned in the determination of favorable results of calculations, in the pressing ticking of the clock as the crowd screams and bellows, shaking the bars, and Tony makes a split-second decision before anything worse can happen, and nods sharply.

“Put me in comms.” He tells Cap, and with no preamble he flies, up, higher and higher, hoping to get a good look at the fence before he blasts it with electricity and accidentally fries someone innocent.

“Got it.” Cap says, as easy as anything, and this – this weird complicity, this… weird feeling Tony’s getting, it makes his brain itch a little, a nagging strange sensation at the back of his mind.

He stores it away for later. Much later. Preferably never.

It takes less than twenty seconds for Tony to get a little helpful not on his HUD to alert him two other people have been connected to his comm lines, and it’s shocking even to himself how much he wants to sigh in relief knowing he can now hear Natasha’s and Clint’s voices.

“Widow?” He calls, partially for the necessity of sharing info of their current locations; But, deep down, mostly because he wants to make sure she’s listening, to confirm that she is really there.

“Iron Man.” Natasha replies, as calm and precise as ever. “Sorry for the wait. How is it going?”

“Are you close to the gates, by any chance?”

“No, not at all.”

“Keep it that way, would ya?” Tony quips. “I’m about to do something a little non-advisable.”

“What a surprise.” She says, completely deadpan, the sarcasm so thick and obvious that Tony’s mouth twitches in amusement despite himself.

Tony has… a very vague idea of how he should do this. Hopefully, he will be right. Or right enough that he won’t permanently injure anyone. Here goes nothing, he supposes.

(God, this is a bad idea.)

“Thor!” Tony calls. “A little help?”

“I am a little busy at the moment, Stark!” Thor bellows, slightly annoyed, not even taking a glance at Tony as he flies over to hover next to Thor as Thor hits a guy gently with his elbow, which means it’s strong enough for the guy to double over entirely.

“Wanna switch places?” Tony jokes, flying close and pushing over one of the men running towards the White House with a bat in his hands, dodging his swing with barely any effort. “I get the strays, you zap some lightning on that fence over there.”

Thor looks back, his face a deep mix of confused and appalled.

“Why would I do that?” He asks, genuinely baffled.

“You want them to stop jumping the line?” Tony asks. “Make it an electric fence, and they will stop jumping over.”

Thor makes a pensive pause.

“Well, it could work.” He agrees, simple and factual. “Are you sure about this?”

“I’m… at least sixty… sixty-seven percent sure.” Tony says, uncertainly.

“Alright then.” Thor concludes, and without much thought, he marches towards the gate.

“Be gentle!” Tony screams, very emphatically. “We want to scare them, not fry them!”

Thor doesn’t much care for Tony’s warnings, or so it seems. Thankfully, he marches towards the side of the property, not the front where people are clinging to the bars like starving animals, but to a corner where he can safely approach the steel structure, sort of. If anyone wanted to take a chance on the opportunity to hit the God of Thunder, even if they were crazy enough, they’d have to be able to leave the crowd and run towards the side, to be able to catch him just as he stands there in front of the fence, considering it thoughtfully for a brief moment of what almost looks like innocent curiosity.

People scream at him, but they don’t actually try to reach out and cause him harm. Which more than Tony can hope for at this point, and he can’t even be glad about it now.

To his utter surprise, Thor swings his axe behind his backs and sheaths it at a hidden holder beneath his cape, freeing his hands – and to Tony, that is absolutely insane, because he has never seen Thor go into a fight, into anything, without his weapon. Tony doesn’t know what he’s doing.

That is, until the air around Thor starts humming, vibrating in its own rhythm and pulse, and he freaking glows, lightning cracking and forming out of nowhere to run through his skin like waves going up and down his body entirely on their own. Tony didn’t even know Thor could do that, at all, much less without his hammer or any other kind of magical weapon. Seeing him like that, standing like a glowing beacon in the dark, exuding power and danger, with his mismatched eyes bright and inhuman, Tony is in awe, and also a little freaked out.

Oh, God, he’s gonna fry every single of those people. If he uses the full strength of a thunder strike, they won’t even know what hit them.

“Thor!” Tony panics. “Gentle!”

“I am being gentle!” Thor bellows, irritated, and Tony gets irritated right back.

It doesn’t look like it, for fuck’s sake! His hands glow with static crackling, electric blue coating his fingertips like a burst of magic, his eyes shining with an unnatural color and intensity that makes a shiver run down Tony’s spine.

Thor wraps his hand around the steel bars, pure strength and power hiding just below the thin skin of his digits, of appearance so human but abilities so much more than that, his grip firm and unwavering, and it takes no more than a squeeze for a burst of light and electricity to course through him like a live wire, the entire fence making a pitiful sound, and almost immediately, the shock runs through it in its entirety, snaking through the pipes and structure like snakes slithering towards prey, so quick the crowd doesn’t even have time to react.

People scream in surprise, bodily throwing themselves back and taking down entire lines of the front rows of the crowd, jolting and jerking away from the bars as the electric current hits them with a painful shock to their unprotected skin. They scramble back, afraid of touching the bars, and, miraculously, they stop for a second. They seem so caught off guard that it somehow to keep them still for a while. Thankfully, Tony doesn’t seem to have harmed anyone, or so he hopes; But he can’t be sure, and the size of the crowd doesn’t let him accurately account for everyone who should have been hit by the current.

But that keeps the House – and the people trapped inside – safe.

Thank fucking Christ. That’s one problem down, only three hundred more to go.

“Can’t believe that worked.” A voice mutters in his ears, and it takes him a moment to realize that’s Barton, sounding very much like he doesn’t realize other people can hear him – like he used to do before, and, it pains him to admit, he had almost forgotten what it sounded like.

“Well.” Tony muses in the comms, feeling a weird necessity to keep the chatter going. “They seem to be in shock for now but I don’t think we should wait too long.”

“We won’t.” Cap assures him. “Thor is going to take me to an advantage point. I wanna talk to them.”

Tony makes a long, drawn-out, ungraceful I-don’t-know-about-that noise. “Yeah, not sure if I advise that.”

“He’s gonna do it anyway.” Clint says nonchalantly.

The worst thing is that Tony knows it too.

“Cap, I’m joining you.”

“No.” Cap immediately says. “I need you to stand watch by the House.”

“No one is gonna jump the fence now, they’re safe. They have Carter and Ross with them—”

“We can’t risk it.”

You’re putting yourself directly into their hands and you wanna talk to me about risk?” The goddamn hypocrite.

“Guys.” Natasha interrupts in a warning tone, voice full of static and apprehension. “You should listen to this.”

There’s a click, and a rustle, and suddenly, a voice – male, hoarse, definitely not one of theirs – screams into the comms:

—He came to punish the evil, to destroy the unworthy! To judge our souls! God is here now, God will clean this Earth of its sinners and scoundrels, and he will strike anyone who refuses to bow to His greatness! We must repent, and God will be merciful! Repent, and God’s messenger will spare us, and we will survive the ash purge!—

“Aw, great.” Clint growls, bitter acid in his voice.

“Jesus fuck.” Tony shudders, his skin breaking out in hives. “What do we do?”

“I can get him out of there but I don’t think his adoring crowd will appreciate that.” Natasha muses.

“Where is he?”

“He’s the guy on the statue. He’s screaming to a group of… about two hundred people – who are all very avid listeners.” She informs. “Should I take him down?”

“Will his loyal followers try to get back at you if you touch their esteemed pastor?” Tony asks.

“They can try.” Natasha says, arrogantly.

“I got it.” Clint offers. “I’m gonna take him down of there.”

“Don’t kill him.” Both Natasha and Tony reply, but Tony is horrified, and Natasha acts like it’s a bothersome reminder to a child.

“Relax.” Clint says – and the drawl of the last vowel, the lazy tilt of his tone, it’s all so familiar that it’s hard to conciliate the idea that Tony hasn’t heard that in so long. “You know I never miss.”

Tony is not sure if he’s saying that to Natasha or Tony himself, but Tony is concerned enough to add, “Make sure the guy doesn’t fall and break his neck, please, we don’t have a medic on call.” He reminds them. “Do you have eyes on Bruce? That’s the most we can do.”

“He’s in the Jet with Rocket and Nebula.” Natasha informs.

Tony frowns. “Why haven’t they come out?”

“You want two aliens and a scientist with no Hulk walking around the massive mob with torches for no reason?” Clint asks, in a sarcastic tone.

“They’re waiting in case we need backup.” Natasha clarifies, calmly. “If it gets critical, we call them.”

Nice to know this isn’t a situation Natasha considers critical, but Tony would beg to differ.

“It’s better if they take the hostages away from here.” He suggests instead, restless. “Nebula and Rocket can fly the Jet.”

“Where would we take them?” Cap asks, genuinely asks, not a hint of condescension or hostility in his voice – and Tony jumps a little, because he had almost forgotten he was also on the line, just listening to their chatter and, surprisingly, not saying a word.

“The Compound, isn’t that the idea?” Clint inquires.

“We can debrief them on what happened inside the House in the last few days, see if anyone saw anything, maybe if the President made it or not.”

“Does it really matter if the guy’s alive or not?” Clint grumbles, with a heavy, weighty tone of derision in his words. “Why have a President when there’s no government?”

“If they won’t listen to us, maybe they’ll listen to the President.” Cap reasons, even though he doesn’t sound very sure about it either.

“That’s not gonna happen.” Clint mumbles.

“I think it can be nice to have the people with access to nuclear codes accounted for.” Natasha suggests, with a tilt to her voice that makes Tony see with startling clarity the arch of her brow and the mean quirk of her lips. “Just to make sure no one is going to try anything when we’re too busy to stop them from taking advantage of the situation.”

“Agreed.” Clint adds in, and, well, it’s not like Tony can disagree with that idea.

“FRI, send them a message.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” FRIDAY replies.

“Cap, how is it going on your side?” Tony then asks, not being able to help the urge to multitask his worries. “I can’t see you. Thor guarding your six?”

Cap takes an oddly long time to answer, almost long enough for Tony to get antsy, but he eventually replies, “It’s going fine. I’m gonna talk to them, see if I can work this out.”

“Steve, you have to be careful.” Natasha warns, and for once, Tony wholeheartedly agrees.

“I’m calling Rhodey.” Tony warns, and the line immediately begins to connect to Rhodey’s comms, FRIDAY following his cue seamlessly without thinking twice. “He’ll go with you.”

“I don’t need him to come with me—”

“I don’t care what you need, I’m not letting you go into that crowd by yourself.”

“Tony—”

“You don’t have your shield.” Tony hisses, aggravated.

Tony feels awful, he feels like shit, but he is right about this, Goddammit.

Cap makes a long pause, thinking so hard Tony can almost hear him through the comms.

“Get him to meet me at gate.” It’s all he says, and Tony wants to argue more, but he knows that it’ll get nowhere, so he takes what he can get.

Tony and Thor are still guarding the House from the gates, the crowd slowly getting back into restlessness and confusion, but no longer charging forward in a way that’s frankly scary to watch, even for a superhero. Even Tony doesn’t know how to deal with such a raw, base feeling of hate as these people are acting on, not even when he felt at his lowest and felt what he thought had been at the most profound depths of the darkness in his mind. Knowing they’ve taken a step back, he’d be lying if he said it doesn’t make him take in an easier breath, and it’s the only thing that allows him to gesture to Thor and indicate that he can leave the area and relocate to a higher advantage point if he prefers to, since Tony knows he’d much rather have the high ground, and Tony blissfully won't feel completely vulnerable being alone down here right in front of the stunned attackers.

Rhodey is approaching quick, Tony can see him in his HUD, the red marker blinking to indicate his position moving quickly from the east side towards the main garden – and even though Tony didn’t doubt for a second that Rhodey could handle himself in a high-pressure situation, both with his Air Force background but also by his expert work with the War Machine suit, it’s still… relieving to see him getting closer, to know there’s someone Tony is deeply in sync with arriving to join them in the battlefield, so Tony will be able to feel a little less unprepared than how he feels at the moment. It makes him panicky, it makes him itchy, and he doesn’t like it. It took him so long to get used to the idea that he’d have to add cameras to the back of his armor because there would be no one there to watch his six; through it all, Rhodey never let him down, never once, and their fighting style has become second nature for them.

Tony feels better knowing Rhodey is here.

(Tony feels better knowing someone has Steve’s back.)

“Rhodey, I need you to cover Cap. He’s moving down the entrance—"

A gunshot cuts through the night, loud and dry, and collectively, they all drop low in instinct, crouching and throwing themselves on the floor, panic wrecking through them like an explosion, unleashing chaos upon the entire block. It so unexpected, so sudden; Tony feels disoriented, like everyone else, just as helpless, and it awful that it takes him even longer to react, because—

(No.)

(No—)

(They’re going to—)

The people start running, running, running, knocking each other over and screaming at the top of their lungs, and gunshots keep coming and coming, Tony doesn’t know where from, or where to, all he can see is the crowd panicking and moving and losing control, doing exactly what they were trying to avoid, pushing and pulling and letting people fall to the floor and trampling over them without a care, the fear too encompassing and overwhelming for them to realize that they’re harming each other.

Tony has seen chaos, the kind of chaos that happened when a frightened city runs in despair as alien attackers fall from the sky, but that’s – this is not the same. These people – they are beyond any semblance of rationality or solidarity, not caring about what happens to the others so long as they get out of the way; It… hurts to see, he doesn’t know why, it just hurts, and it’s awful and oh, God, this is getting out of control and they need to do something.

They need to move. They need to move. Holy fuck, they need to move.

“Rhodey!” Tony screams, forgetting completely that the sound will resonate inside Rhodey’s helmet with all the force of the speakers, almost unbearable to his ears – but it doesn’t matter, because he’s panicking, he’s panicking and he needs to do something.

“Tony, what the hell is going on, I thought you were—” Rhodey demands, but even his disbelieving question can’t get past the absolute despair that floods Tony’s every thought as he continues to yell:

“Get Nat and Clint!” He pleads. “Get them to the Jet!”

“Where are they?!”

“In the middle of Lafayette Square, by the statue! Hurry up!”

Tony flies overhead the crowd, shuddering more every single second he realizes he can’t find any of the others anywhere in the middle of the mob of hysteric people, and he’s filled with a horrible sense that something might happen while he’s not watching, that he won’t be able to help them, that they’ll get hurt and he won’t do enough, not fast enough—

Suddenly, a part of the crowd starts pushing in another direction, changing the course abruptly, and Tony turns to see what’s happening and he realizes there’s a huge flare of light coming from the square garden, flickering and hot, increasing rapidly; People are dropping the burning items they’ve been carrying, and torches and scorching flags falling to the floor of the gardens, spreading wildfire through the trees and grass, exactly where Natasha and Clint had been hiding just before the shots started.

Tony suddenly finds himself nearly frozen with fear.

“Oh, fuck!” Clint yells on comms, sounding far too panicked to be completely terrifying. “Oh, no that’s – Oh, fuck.”

“Rhodey!” Tony screams.

“I can’t find Barton!” Rhodey screams back, genuinely distressed.

“Clint, where are you?!”

“In the trees, to the left! I see Rhodes!” He says, quick and fearful. “I’m getting a flare!”

“I’m out, I’m safe.” Natasha says, and Tony is so geared up he can’t even be properly relieved to hear her voice. “But we have to put out the fire, quick.”

“Cap?!” Tony calls, trying very hard to ignore how hard his left arm is hurting and how he feels himself tremble inside the smooth balancing of his armor. “Cap, where are you? Tell me you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.” Cap rasps hoarsely, sounding very much like he’s struggling, not convincing at all in his attempt to make it come off as comforting. “They’re shooting at me, not at the crowd. I got cover.”

“How is that being okay?!” Both Tony and Rhodey ask, but Tony yells, while Rhodey sounds exasperated, but composed enough that his focus is not slipping through the cracks in his voice.

“Where are you?” Tony repeats, insistent. “I’m getting you out.”

Steve grunts. “Get the crowd away from the House—”

“I’m asking where the fuck are you!” Tony snaps, because he can’t do this, he has no time for this, he – he can’t let Steve get hurt just because he’s being an asshole and refusing to admit he’s in a tight spot. People are shooting at him, he has no way of defending himself, how can Tony just stand, fly, hover, whatever, just stay here and do nothing?! He can’t allow it, not when he can stop it, he knows that!

Thunder roars above them suddenly, loud and angry, and if Tony were religious in any way, he might have believed something in the skies was actually trying to warn them something. Maybe that there really is some judgment happening here, maybe that – maybe their chaos reaches so far and wide the universe itself can feel it, and its weeping, its crying because it also doesn’t know how to deal with it, how to cope with how beyond any sort of salvation they are.

But that’s not it. It’s Thor, it’s Thor losing control, and the sound of his thunder makes the sky go bright with its lightning, the all too familiar smell of rain made even stronger by the dense smell of ash and concrete, and his emotions just bend nature despite his will, as he watches horrified the crowd completely lose itself in the wake of their fear.

Droplets of water begin to fall from the sky, almost shy, the beginnings of a rain that Tony feels within him almost to his core.

Tony can’t fucking wait. He can’t wait.

“Get back to the Jet!” Cap’s voice yells through the comms, but Tony completely ignores him and zooms in on the crowd from above, finally able to see what’s happening right at the middle of it as the volume of people dwindles down as they escape running into the night, and he can see people fallen on the ground, struggling to get up, people trying to hide under cars, people freaking out – and a man standing in the middle of it all with a fucking gun, aimed at a banged-up SUV, shooting at its side like he has to kill it even if it’s the last thing he’ll ever do.

Tony knows Cap is hiding behind that car.

He drops down heavily to the ground between the gun and the SUV, the armor shaping itself around him flawlessly to form a shield, a nearly impenetrable defense that covers him from head to toe, all the way to the wide sides. It covers the car nicely, and it’s safe, it’s safe, and that’s why Tony screams “Cap?! Get over here!” to the other side, hoping he will get the cue and join Tony behind the safety of the barrier—

But he doesn’t.

Tony waits, and waits, waits for what it feels like an eternity, bullets ricocheting off his armor as easy as anything, but he’s adrenaline is running so high that he’s panicking and he can’t stop it.

“Cap!” He screams, and even though they are so close, Tony hears no reply.

Thor is the one who gives him the chance to act. Enraged, Thor descends from the sky and tackles the man with the guy with all his force, something that would be worrying if Tony could find within himself a single shred of care, ripping the gun from his hands and pushing him to the floor with all his weight – and before Tony can think much of it, he pushes his helmet back from his face and turns around, even if leaves him exposed, and jumps over the car, already looking around like a maniac in search for Cap, fearing that something bad might have happened to him and he had completely missed it through the sparse words said on comms.

Tony finds him easily. He’s standing right there. Perfectly okay.

But Tony very suddenly understands why Steve seemed suddenly to be speechless.

“It’s your fault!

The woman screams.

She grips him tight and she screams, totally unhinged, her hair wild and her glasses askew, her clothes too thin and her body shaking, her fingertips blue from the cold, her skin sickly sweaty – and Cap, lost before her, just stands there and takes it, as she unravels before him, and he can’t do anything but to watch.

“Where were you?” The woman screams, beating Cap’s chest with her trembling fists, no aim or strength, only despair. “Where were you?!”

(My son is dead. And I blame you.)

No.

No. God, no, no—

Get out.

Get out.

Out, out, they need to get out of here.

“Lady, just—” Tony twitches, trembling as he pulls her away, trying to be gentle but also completely losing his mind from the way his eyes just fucking begin to water, something wounded and hurtful curling inside his chest, putting pressure into his heart like he has a ton being placed upon his body, “Stop. Stop! We need to go. You need to go!”

I lost everything!” She rages, but it’s not just rage – it’s her tears, and the way she can barely speak through her raw throat, is the fact that she’s not even looking at Steve at all; He’s just a body to hit, a person to blame, a reminder of a lost cause, and she doesn’t realize what Steve’s face actually looks like, how… how gutted his expression seems, how the little light of hope Tony thought was invincible until now flickers softly and then goes completely cold, as if it dies inside him at that very moment.

Tony wishes he wasn’t familiar with what that feels like.

He never wanted Steve to go through to this horror in his life.

The rain is getting heavier and heavier, and it hits his hair and his face and it feels like tears, it feels like bullet wounds too, and they’re so cold Tony knows he will never be able to feel warm again.

He reacts badly. He shoves the woman off a bit more forcefully than he should, and he probably bruises her wrists, but he won’t stand behind for long enough to check. Somehow, he finds himself with his arm around Steve’s waist, gripping him tight and pulling him closer, enough that Tony can hold on to him and take flight, dragging him away from the woman and the crowd by sheer force. They blast through the sky, retreating quickly towards the White House garden, where Tony can shakily see Natasha standing there waiting, as Carter and Ross, looking lost and worried out of their minds, carrying their guns in iron grips and shaking hands, breathless and heaving, undoubtedly confused and scared of the sudden sounds of screaming retreat outside the House when they were supposed to be dealing with it.

Feeling weak, Tony lets himself drop to land close to them, letting Steve down with a completely ungraceful move, almost letting him fall, and the sudden shift in his balance has him toppling and both of them crashing painfully to the floor, twisting on the cold, wet soil as they struggle to reorient themselves, pathetic and completely drained to their bones.

Right behind them comes Rhodey, carrying a grimacing Clint in a very unbalanced position, clearly having grabbed onto him in a rush, desperate to get him out of the fire, followed by Thor; Whose face is just as stormy as the rain that gets heavier and heavier around them, as the clouds up above so black they can’t even see them—

And when they are all there, all of them, together on the grass, trapped inside the gates, gasping and aching, they are ridiculous, they are a failure, because the few people still left behind from the riot run past them painting a miserable sight, the others who squirm on the floor from injuries or pains looking broken and abandoned; They should have stopped this, and they didn’t. They had one job, and they failed at it spectacularly, and it’s so painfully obvious now that they’re not ready. They—

They’re not ready. They aren’t ready to exist together anymore, they don’t know how to make this team work, and – if they can’t do it, all is lost. All of it.

It is the most pitiful moment they have ever shared.

(Together.)

(But what’s the point of that?)

The rain soaks them to the bones, cold and unmerciful, making them shiver and tremble where they lie, and even though it falls to gently ease off the burning flames from the torching trees, to ease the grass from its blazing trail, the freeze of it causing their breaths to come off in puffs of mist; They are swallowed by it, not even the darkness of the night wide and consuming enough to hide their shame, their remorse, the glaring, ugly truth that maybe, they really aren’t meant to be together. Maybe, if they can’t find a way to fix it – they are all going to lose. This time, with no coming back.

Tony doesn’t know how long they stand there.

But he’s too terrified to figure out what else they can possibly break if they once again dare to move.

Notes:

I had to look up Fahrenheit for this. Revolting, honestly.

Next chapter, we continue with our emotional arc for this round - Thor, Scott, and few other surprises. Things are going to take a really aggressive turn soon, as the high pressure and the stress and the wild emotions running loose gets a lot of our characters very, very on the edge; And it'll all take us one step closer into finally getting some closure on a few subjects MCU has never given proper attention to, which I feel like it should be mended, for our sakes. Can't wait to see you guys there!

Thank you so much for reading. Once again, thank you for your patience, welcome to the new subscribers, and, as you know, if you enjoy my writing, make sure to check out the pinned post in my twitter to know more about how you can support me if you're interested in requesting something for yourself!

I'll see you all in the next one, back to our normal updating schedule :)

Chapter 15: Chapter 15

Notes:

When you're on edge, you sometimes say things you don't mean. And sometimes, you say exactly what you mean. Whether it's fair or not, whether it's mean or not - whether it's true or not.

Guilt makes you do incredible things.

We're getting real, folks. These characters have been very hesitant to talk about certain things up until now - understandable, knowing how much they're hurting and how the last impression they have of each other is definitely not a good one, but that also means one other thing: there is a lot of rage and a lot of hurt hiding in there that they're holding back. That won't do. We need them to be honest, for once in their lives, because lies and omissions are exactly the things that brought them here in the first place. So now they have no choice. I will beat the truth out of them even if it seems harsh, you know why? Because they owe that to us.

I said wives, kids, and daddy issues, didn't I? Then let us discuss a character that encompasses all three, in so many layers of twisted feelings and bad characterization that we will have to literally save him from MCU's clutches, because the only way to make things right is to do so. It won't be easy, and it won't be pleasant. It'll be ugly, and raw, and freaking exhausting. And we're gonna do it anyway, because someone needs to, and it might as well be us.

Clint Barton, this one is for you. The very definition of It Gets Worse Before it Gets Better, this chapter breaks a lot more than it fixes - but dismantling something is the best way to find the root of the problem, so that's exactly what we're gonna go.

Time to start breaking these characters to see what they're truly made of.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

There are two injured people among the twenty-eight hostages hidden inside the White House.

None of them are supposed to be here.

There’s security and cleaning staff, and some family members – a few of them thought it would be smarter, understandably, to hide in one of the most secure buildings in the world instead of their own houses. Tony can see the logic in it. It’s also easier to sneak into the building when there’s no lights, no security system, no rules. But it’s easier, his mind reminds him, for both refugees and rioters alike.

What’s not easier, not by any stretch, is to find them. To face them. And to realize they don’t know what to do.

They huddle together on a corner of one of the secret rooms, only found thanks to Carter’s impressive skills and fortunate previous knowledge of the House – and if that advantage comes from personal experience or SHIELD interference, there will never be a right time to ask, now. They cry and sob and hug each other, trapped like abused animals in a cage, behind a table that provides little to no cover in case of an actual attack, much less one like the crowd that roared outside just mere minutes before, had they been able to get past the gates before the Jet had arrived. Tony’s entire body shivers in fear for what might have happened to these people had they gotten here too late; because he doesn’t even know what would have happened. He can’t even imagine. There’s no logic to be applied here to rationalize this, because this is just… raw.

It’s raw. Raw, the way they look up and stare with eyes glassy with tears, the sobs, the sinking nails on skin as they grab the nearest body as tight as they can, not even the sight of Iron Man or War Machine or SHIELD agents or even Captain America enough to persuade them that they are safe. It’s like they never heard the word, can’t even grasp the concept – safe. There is no safety. The sky is dark, the air is freezing, they cry through hoarse coughs and choked up lungs, scrambling to hide from a furious mob; whatever safety they know, it’s forgotten, at least for now. Now, safe is twenty-eight bodies on the floor, huddling for warmth, and everything that’s not this is bad.

These people, for fuck's sake, none of them were ready for it – they all look like they could have been staff here, at most, common people, except for one man who might have been security, with a strong build and fierce eyes, but who is holding a woman that seems to be his mother. An old lady, who is very likely to be in her seventy-somethings, trembling in her son’s arms.

Fuck. They can’t just… This is awful.

And here, they are faced with a problem.

They can’t bring twenty-eight people back with them in the Jet.

Much less, twenty-eight people who refuse to move.

It’s a shitty, shitty moment. Tony feels it deep, all the way down to his soul, and he knows everyone else feels it too, because he can see it in their eyes – they’ve been in this situation before, all the time, every time they ever assembled since the team first got called into action; The civilians who get caught in the crossfire and, thankfully, live to tell the tale, sometimes don’t come out of it unscathed. They try their best, but it’s just not possible to prevent at least one person from getting at the very least a broken arm or bruised ribs.

Beyond the very obvious trauma, these people need medical care, too, to make sure they’re fine. They need it. But they don’t want it.

“It’s safe now, you can leave”, Agent Ross explains.

They don’t want to, the man says. He hugs his mother tighter against his chest.

“We can get you to medical”, Rogers explains, gently, pointing to a woman huddled in the middle of the pile, her leg braced in a thick white bandage to keep it stabilized.

It’s fine, she says. They all echo her, in meek voices, hands squeezing tighter.

“They might come back”, Rhodey warns them, and it’s true. In fact, they probably will. They can’t, in good conscience, leave them here. Tony tells them so.

No, thank you, they say. Please, they say. No.

They don’t care. They refuse to leave.

So…

What do they do?

What do they do?

He stands at an impasse, they all do. He knows that by nature, Rogers, Natasha, and Rhodey, at the very least, are incapable of non-action. To be fair, Tony is too, most of the time. If it’s – it’s a bad idea, it’s a bad idea to stay here, and it’s obvious, and he should do something. Carter seems to think so too, but surprisingly, she keeps quiet. So does Ross, though Tony can see how it eats him up from the inside, in the way he looks around frantically and chews his lip, like he’s struggling but not giving up on finding a solution.

Normally, they could send in medical – but what medical? Who? There’s no one to call. The closest agent is Cameron Klein, the one who sent the distress signal; but who knows what his qualifications are. Does he have anyone with him who could help, any sort of medical aid? They don’t know. They have first aid kits here, the man on the floor assures them. They all know first aid, they bandaged the woman’s leg all by themselves, he points out. But that’s not enough, and they all know this.

But twenty-eight people don’t fit in a Quinjet. There’s already eleven of them, and they all squeezed into the cabin and the cargo hold like sardines in a can. And they can’t separate these people. They just got attacked by a mob – they’re not beyond retaliation to protect themselves, not now there are fewer targets.

In a small, quiet moment, when they all just stand there with stiff backs and closed fists, biting lips and clicking tongues, Tony has… He has a – It’s weird.

He could say it’s a moment of clarity, but that’s a lie, because that’s the opposite of how it feels – it’s a moment of darkness, a moment of… bleak, miserable realization, of sorrowful comprehension, almost an echo of pain, where something becomes very, very obvious, very certain in his brain.

These people are like May Parker.

They are like Wong, too. There’s going to be thousands of them out there.

Tony tried to convince May Parker to come back to the Compound with him. He really, really tried. It seemed… it wasn’t right to leave her alone. Because she was. Alone. With the kid gone, the kid was gone, and she was a widow, and who knows where all of her friends and co-workers could possibly be in the middle of this mess. She was alone. And that was Tony’s fault – how could he leave her alone in her apartment? He tried to convince her to come back with him, at least, so she wouldn’t be alone.

She refused.

He tried. He insisted. She kept refusing.

And Tony pretended he didn’t know why at the time, that he simply respected her wishes, but that’s not true. He knows why she stayed. She kept the window open. She kept the lights on. Tony isn’t prideful enough to deny if he had the chance, he would have done the same. She’s – She’s still waiting for him to come back, even though she knows he won’t. She refuses to give up, to acknowledge that it’s… done. And sure, Tony can’t fault her for it, he can’t! He won’t! Of course not. How could he, right, how could he, when he’s just like her, deep inside?

But it’s frustrating. And it’s not logical, and it’s not fair; In fact, it might even be mean, or inconsiderate, at the very least it’s contradictory, but it’s hard not to be… angry,  a little, even if it’s just a little, at least right now, because they’re trying to help. They are. These people, on the floor, right there; Tony can look at them and see May Parker, hell, see himself there, he can understand them, but it’s also very obvious why they shouldn’t be refusing help! May Parker had her apartment, and she was safe, as safe as she could be – these people can die if the rioters come back and decide to finish what they started.

And no, Tony doesn’t have a plan – and that doesn’t solve anything, he knows, okay! He knows. They can’t bring these people back with them, but also they can’t leave them here, and they can’t also trust them to navigate through the night with no help and no resources. But what the fuck can they do? Can they just leave these people here to fend for themselves – when they shouldn’t, when they don’t have to? When they’re being offered help? Jesus, shit, Tony knows they’re scared, he’s scared too, dammit – but they can’t stay here, please. They need to move.

It’s dangerous here, and it’s dangerous outside too, and it’s horrible, and everything is gone, but – just, just move. They need to move.

He doesn’t even know how to… feel. About this. Crushing guilt, is what he instinctively feels – for what, he doesn’t really know, but guilt, it’s impossible not to recognize. Maybe guilt for… for not having succeeded as he wanted to, not succeeding in getting people to safety, or not succeeding in… literally everything else he thought he might be able to do to keep this situation in his control. Maybe for failing to predict this, when it should have been so obvious it would happen. FRIDAY had alerted him that it had already happened in other places in the world, how could have he been so naïve as to believe it would happen so close to home? Maybe guilt because he can’t help them, not so many of them, not right now; his money is worth nothing, his suits can’t stop the ashes from clouding the entire sky, his machines can’t bring people back together from dust. Tony doesn’t think he ever felt like this – not even when he first realized what the sight of his name engraved on the side of a terrorist bomb, or even when he saw the sky split into a wormhole right above his head, only to allow an entire alien army to attack. Not even then. Not ever.

He is useless. They all are.

God, they are fucking useless.

“What do we do?” Natasha asks, no louder than a murmur, as she turns her back to the hostages to make sure they can’t even read her lips, leaning forward so the only people who can actually hear her are Rogers, Tony, and Agents Carter and Ross.

Ross shuffles awkwardly where he stands, risking a quick glance to the hostages on the corner. “We can’t just leave them here, that’s a fact.”

It’s no more than a whisper, so Tony doubts any of the civilians could have heard, but it’s possible, because the man on the floor says, just at the right cue, “Just leave us here. We’ll be okay, you can leave.”

“It’s not safe.” Carter replies pointedly.

“We have guns. It’s not much but it does the job.”

“What about food? Light? It’s freezing out there.”

“And we’ll be safer here, inside, than anywhere else.”

Dammit. God fucking dammit.

“We can’t let you—”

“We’ll be fine!” The man snaps. “I know you want to help, but you can’t help! Not now. We can take care of ourselves.”

The old lady in his arms closes her eyes and trembles in his embrace. She hides her face in the crook of his elbow, sparse brows pinched in a pained expression, breath unsteady. She seems like she’s about to cry. Tony thinks she’s whispering something, because the man leans down to bring his ear closer to her, and he begins to tremble too, bottom lip caught between his teeth in a worrying gesture.

Tony’s legs itch like they want to take a step forward, but he doesn’t move. No one does.

“Listen.” The man says, in measured words. “There’s nothing else you can do. You cleared the area, and we appreciate it, but there’s no place safer than here. Not for us. I know you guys are superheroes or whatever, but I don’t care. This is where I’m safe, and this is where I’m staying. We all are.”

“Why aren’t you home?”

“This is safer.” The man repeats, through a locked jaw and gritted teeth. “No one is going to come looking for us, and the House was empty when we got here. Don’t even know where the President is – he probably got vaporized like the rest of them. No one is coming back, and no one is looking for us. So if we stay here, it’s safer.”

That’s not true, they all know it’s not true, because they all saw it. They all saw the mob, the crowd who wanted to set this building on fire not because of the people inside, but because… just because, because so many reasons, and just because it’s not a personal vendetta doesn’t mean these people can’t be collateral damage in case they come back.

But they refuse to be moved.

So what can they do?

Nothing.

Tony half-expects someone to do something, but they don’t. Not really. Rhodey and Natasha seem incredibly torn on what to do, struggling between the instinct to force them into some sort of compliance or step back in other not to spook them, as do Ross and Carter; Clint and Thor can only seem to stare with grievous, solemn eyes, no answer forthcoming from them.

Steve, the one who Tony expected most to take the lead and impose himself on the situation, to come up with some sort of solution the same way he had offered insight on the steel gates mere moments before – just… just stands there, seemingly not fully comprehending what’s going on, passively waiting, not even fully observing the room with his eyes glassy and lost in some distant place as he averts his gaze.

Tony doesn’t think he has ever seen him look like this the entire time they’ve known each other.

(It was the woman.)

(The one hitting him on the chest, screaming in his face)

(He knows what if feels like now)

“Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do.” Rhodey breathes out after what seems an agonizingly long time, and even though he carefully measures his voice to sound gentle and reassuring, some of the civilians shuffle uncomfortably in their tiny cocoon of safety. “We’re not gonna force you out of here if you really don’t want to, but we need to make sure you’re not gonna be alone in here in case the crowd comes back.”

And surprisingly, it’s Carter he turns to and asks:

“Your comm can connect to the Agent you have close by?”

“Yes.” Carter nods, immediately shifting into a professional posture, following Rhodey’s cue with admirable grace, removing her communicator and kneeling down to offer it to the civilians,

“We’re gonna leave you with it and we’re gonna let the agents know you’re here, if you decide to leave, you call them, and you let them know. Or if you need anything, let them know.”

“In case anything happens, and I mean anything—” Carter stares them down fiercely, no chance for misinterpretation in her voice, and even the security guy on the floor looks a little intimidated when he reaches for the small device in Carter’s hand. “All you have to do is call Agent Klein. He’s just a few blocks away, and he has three other agents with him. If you need backup, you know who to call.”

They nod. Carter stands.

And then—

They leave.

They leave.

That’s what they do.

 

 

It’s the wrong choice.

But then again – any choice would have been.

 

 

“So.” Rhodey sighs. “This was absolute crap.”

That’s putting it lightly. That’s… God, fuck, that’s a real euphemism right there. Absolute crap.

They boarded back into the Quinjet in deadly silence, dragging their feet and struggling not to peer over their shoulders, even though they left fearing something bad might happen once they averted their eyes. Not looking back is as much a defiance as it is self-preservation at this point, to block out your own ears and pretend that what you’re doing can be ignored, just for a little while, just enough for you to take a breather and think, even when you know that the situation is hopeless, and you won’t return to fix it. Saving yourself from the heartbreak of looking back and see the destruction you may have caused.

They saved the hostages, and then they left them. And that is that.

There really wasn’t much else they could do. Knowing it doesn’t make him feel any less shitty.

He tries not to feel awful about it, but he can’t. He can try to tell himself he’s respecting their wishes, but just like with May Parker, he knows it’s a lame excuse. It’s never going to be easy to be faced with the realization they’ve reached their limits on their capacity to help civilians, because the truth is – they are all living in borrowed time. The familiarity of the emergency, the recognizable visual of a crowd that he could so easily default into thinking “that is the enemy, and this is the mission”; That’s not gonna be enough to hide the inescapable truth that the real enemy has already come and gone, and has already taken his victory with him. Stopping the mob won’t stop the inevitable; the civilian attacks can come and go, as often as they please, but nothing will change the fact that the world will keep getting colder.

And they have no solution to that.

Whatever happens now — Whatever happens between that first snap and the moment they find Thanos and reverse this entire thing, whatever happens in this entire middle, they simply have no power over it. Everything will be a consequence of Thanos’ attack, and the only minute thing they’ll be able to manipulate and change will be their own actions; The only structure that cannot fail if they really want to take that Gauntlet back and save all these people from being swallowed whole by the ashes that will drown the entire world in darkness.

And it’s terrible, to feel helpless. It’s despairing. Only more so after failing so spectacularly at a mission that, maybe in another time, they might have been able to perform with no problems at all.

That was – what the fuck had just happened? Jesus, how had they – how had they allowed themselves to become… this? It was a disaster, they jumped into a fight with no comms, no plan, and look what happened!

This is wrong. This is all wrong.

(This is not how it’s supposed to go.)

Tony beats himself up for it the entire flight home. Not a second to breathe. It consumes him as soon as he steps out of the White House and he feels the cold wind hit his face with the same blunt impact of a baseball bat, freezing bite against his hot, sweaty skin, air so dry his throat scratches and heaves when he makes the mistake of gasping in too large of a breath; the silence in the Square is not a relief, it’s oppressing, the light drizzle of rain that still falls from the pitch-black sky is needle-thin, with barely any weight to it, almost like a kiss, but the smell in the air promises a terrible storm to come, soon, to fall upon the world heavy and relentless.

They won’t be here long enough to see it. Because they leave.

This is the thought that fills his brain all the way back to the Jet, for the entire trip home, and not even the sight of the Compound’s lights is a greeting warm enough to melt away the huge block of ice that seems to have hardened inside his chest.

They left—

And this is a hard thing to face. It’s hard – because Tony has spent the last entire decade forcing himself to not look away, to put his foot down and take his stand, as he should have done ever since the beginning. Tony doesn’t know how to back down, and even when he tries, it never lasts long. Hell, ask Pepper, won’t you. Ask her. Isn’t that why he’s here? Isn’t that why there won’t be a wedding after all, because he refuses to step away?

But now, he’s coming to the terrible conclusion that… They might not have a choice.

He owes those people to make this right. They all owe it to them, to everyone, to every single person who is still alive; They owe it to them to make this right. As fast as possible, so no one else has to suffer.

Even if—

Even if that means they’ll have to step away from their cries of help.

“It’s gonna rain.” Bruce says, sort of to himself, but also loud enough for everyone to hear him, certainly loud enough for everyone to stop in their tracks and turn back to stare at him where he stopped, by the door, as if his feet didn’t have enough strength to move him any further. “We weren’t accounting for rain yet.”

Tony pauses. He doesn’t know if Bruce is referring to DC, or to New York – but Bruce had been watching from the Jet, with Nebula and Rocket, and maybe he had noticed the strong ozone smell like Tony had. Or maybe he noticed here, when he stepped out of the Jet, when Tony was too out of it to realize it.

Either way—

It’s gonna rain.

Rain.

“Is that a problem?” Natasha frowns slightly, turning to stare at Bruce head-on, posture tense.

“That’s the thing.” Bruce says, eyes fearful. “We don’t know.”

The lounge is cold, the lights sterile and clinical, and they are scattered in various states of disarray, their conviction dying a slow, miserable death inside the cabin of the Jet, so the only thing they drag back inside the Compound walls with them is their wounded pride, nothing else. Tony has retreated his armor, Rhodey stepped out of his suit, and all of the others who had weapons on them had put them away with unbridled shame – The last Tony remembers sharing a moment like this with others was during Ultron, after Johannesburg, and the comparison rankles deep, it aches in the most fragile of places inside his chest.

“Remember when I said the rain could be contaminated?” Bruce reminds them, but even that conversation seems like it was forever ago, time stretching like unwound coil in a world that knows no light, hours blending together to a smudgy gray. “There’s all sorts of particles in the water now, the rain is going to bring them all back down and into the soil. I don’t know how it’s gonna affect the pH, but I have to assume that it will, and it won’t be good.”

Rocket takes in a noisy breath, and asks, “Bad enough it’s gonna shorten our time here?”

Bruce looks at Tony with a questioning gaze, then Rhodey, then Thor, as if he’s weighing their opinions – but there’s nothing to be done other than to say the truth, no matter how horrible it is.

“Probably.” Bruce heaves, and it has a hysterical tone to it, a laugh that’s not really a laugh, full of nerves and jitters. “And our initial prospects are not good to begin with.”

There’s a moment of questioning pause, and then, they all start looking around to find each other’s gazes, confusion in their eyes; because save from the four of them, no one else knows about Bruce’s initial prediction yet, because it all got so lost with Wong, and Strange’s books, and the riot, and literally everything else. And isn’t that, in itself, such a bad sign of how this is all going?

So now they’re going to have to break whatever little hope there’s left in the rest of this team too.

“Three months.” Rhodey tells them, eyes darting down. “That’s the initial projection. We have three months to figure this out, and find him.”

A wave of pure hopelessness washes over the entire room, Agent Ross going as far as letting himself drop onto one of the couches like a sack of potatoes, losing all control of his weight.

“Three months.” Clint parrots back, voice utterly hollow. “We have to fix this in three months.”

“It’s not an accurate prediction but it’s a safe one.” Bruce tries to clarify, but if his intention is to sound comforting, he fails miserably at it. “To assume it would be any longer could be dangerous. It’s not a good time-frame, but I believe it’s the best we’ve got.”

“And we’re not gonna make it.”

The room goes silent as a grave.

They slowly turn to stare at Tony.

(It hurts, and it’s true.)

“Not like this.” Tony says, with frightening finality. “Not if we can’t pull ourselves together. This, this kind of stuff – it can’t happen.

Tony’s eyes are on the floor, but he’s not actually looking at it. No. His thoughts are far away – in DC still, or maybe in Titan, who the fuck knows, because he’s all scattered and thrown to the wind like the ashes themselves, blood pressure skyrocketing so dangerously it’s almost comical how his hands tremble where he flexes them frantically by his sides, struggling to keep himself from losing sensation at his fingertips.

It’s not good.

It’s not good.

(You should step back.)

He should.

(You’re going to do something you’ll regret.)

Probably.

(Probably?)

Certainly.

But he can’t back down, can he? He can’t. And it’s not because of his issues, his paranoia, or whatever the hell – he really can’t back down, not this time, no matter what it will cost him. No matter – Jesus fuck – no matter how many people he’s gonna crush on the way. Pepper, civilians, his own supposed teammates – it doesn’t matter.  Tony is going to have to – he’s gonna have to throw it all away in favor of the mission, in a way that he never has before, because the next time the klaxon blares, he will not answer. He can’t.

In order to save the world, he’s going to have to turn his back to it.

His nails are jagged and sharp. He nearly cuts his palms right open with how tightly he closes them in fists.

Someone makes an awkward sound, and then, it’s Rocket’s voice that says, “Not like we had time to prepare—”

“And we’re not gonna have it, so we need to do something about it now!”

Woah, take it easy.” Rocket exclaims, and Tony raises his head in a snap fast enough to see how Rocket steps back and raises his hands, paws, whatever, but also how everyone else stands up just a little bit straighter, a little bit tenser, eyes guarded and fearful as they watch Tony’s hands tremble as if he can barely contain his rage, his lips twitching with the nagging desire to pull back and bare his teeth, almost like a snarl.

“Tony, calm down—”

Calm down?” Tony jabs at Bruce. “No, you don’t get it – I don’t have time to calm down, we don’t have time to calm down.

They look at him as if he has lost his mind – he hasn’t. If anything, they are the ones not taking this seriously enough, and Tony will not have this; He doesn’t have time for this crap, for this fumbling and bumbling around with no sense or purpose, because – haven’t they realized what has happened here?

Tony’s nerves are beyond any salvation, his skin crawling and prickly with discomfort – and if this is where he loses it, fuck it, he doesn’t care. He’s tired. Tired of this bullshit, tired of pretending they can make this work like before, tired of trying to be calm and civil; The last time he attempted civility with most of the people in the room, he ended up with a shield jammed in his chest, and what good did it all do? Huh? What good did it do!

They were supposed to be together – maybe all of this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe they wouldn’t need to reach this point, but they have, and he’s tired of pretending he can be the same man he used to be, that they can reclaim any kind of past familiarity or comfort with each other. They can’t. There is no comfort to be had here.

Tony has lost too much to be the same man.

He has spent too much time fighting again on his own to be the same man.

He cannot be that man again. Not now.

“I don’t know if you are all… refusing to see, or failing to grasp the reality of what’s going on outside, but – this?” Tony rasps, opening his hands to wildly gesture in vague directions of the room, as if the chaos was there, as if it had followed them home – and in a way, it had. “This, that just happened? That crowd, out there, that is our fault.

Their faces cloud over, and Thor asks, in a muted tone: “Our fault?”

Yes, and you can pretend it’s not, you can lie to yourself, all day, but the truth is that it is our fault, and we can’t fuck up like this again if we want to do anything to help those people!” Tony snaps, uncaring of how harshly he may come across.

“What the hell do you want us to do?” Clint scoffs, a laugh that has absolutely no amusement in it, a heave of breath sneering and bitter exiting noisy and mocking from his nostrils. “How exactly was that our fault? They started shooting at us, not the other way around!”

“That’s because they were scared!”

“And we’re not?” Clint – Barton growls, his shoulders squaring in an aggressive pose. “You really think you’re the only one here who is scared, Tony? You think you’re the only one here who lost someone?”

“Clint.” Natasha warns, stepping closer to him, her eyes reprimanding.

“C’mon, take it easy. You keep it down—” Rhodey placates, raising his hands in a detaining gesture.

“Why the hell do I have to keep it down? What about him!” Clint yells, pointing to Tony in a combative manner. “I almost got trapped in the fire, Cap could have gotten shot, Nat could’ve gotten hurt, and he’s here accusing us as if—"

“Funny how you only mention the three of you.” Tony sneers, squinting as if he’s genuinely curious, but the expression is all mockery. “I’m not naming names, but since you take it upon yourself—"

“You know that’s not what he means.” Natasha turns sharply, her voice chiding. Too bad for her that Tony doesn’t care for her diplomatic attempts of peacemaking; It’s not gonna work here, because they are way past that. Far too much, in fact. That’s why Tony raises an eyebrow at her, full of sarcasm, and asks:

“Do I?”

Barton makes a motion as to step forward, and it’s so sudden and so charged that Agents Ross and Carter both jump to their feet and reach for their guns, ready to unholster them and aim, even if their free hands are raised into the air also in calming motions, their eyes cautious.

“You guys really want to do this now?” Carter asks, face disapproving, but otherwise fully collected – and it’s good she can be collected, good for her, because this is about to get a lot uglier than she thinks it will.

“That’s enough.” Rogers interrupts, stepping forward so he can stand somewhat in between Barton and Tony. “We’re a team—"

“We’re not!” Tony interrupts – and you know what, it feels good. It feels righteous, and freeing, and goddamned overdue to say this, to say it out loud, to the face of the people who actually deserve to hear it, because they should, they should hear this, they deserve it. “You know we’re not, and we haven’t been for a long time! We might have known how to fight together years ago, but things change! And we have to stop pretending they didn’t!”

Rogers makes that stormy face again, the one Tony always associates with bad arguments and headaches, but he’s not having any of it. “We’re not pretending anything—"

“Why the fuck did you jump?” Tony jerks his chin in a defying motion, and Rogers stops. “Why would you do that?”

Rogers stares back at him. He clenches his jaw, beard full but even so not enough to hide the way his nose flares and his mouth twists in distasteful bitterness, and something surges from inside Tony before Rogers can even think to respond, something ugly and crude and rotten, something that has been growing inside him for the past two years and he didn’t even know, a hurt he thought he got over from but apparently not, a wound that he had ignored only to realize now it had festered to the point of agony, and all he can do is to scream it, because his body is not big enough to contain it all.

“I know why.” He says, unkind. “Because for the past two years, no, even longer than that – you have done whatever you wanted, with no restraints, no rules, and now you don’t know how to work with anyone but yourself.”

“What the fuck, man, what is wrong with you!?” Barton yells, when Rogers does something that, in a more benevolent mood, Tony could almost call a flinch. But he’s not. He’s not, and so what happens is that Steve Rogers just stands there looking at him with barely a twitch in his perfect face, and Tony – Tony hates him, hates how he just stands there and does nothing when it’s convenient to him, when he doesn’t push back when Tony wants him to, that he doesn’t fight, not when Tony wants him to, never when Tony needs him to!

People have called Tony selfish all his life. Always. His father, Obie, his associates, the press, his lovers, his team. Natasha had written an entire report on it. People call him egotistic and reckless and unrestrained – but who the fuck is saying the same about Steve Rogers, about the rest of them, who are all so ready to do whatever Rogers tells them to without a second thought, when Rogers is just as bad, just as egotistic, just as arrogant, and they all are, but somehow, Tony is always the bad guy?

Tony is selfish, yeah, he is selfish, he never denied it – but why does everyone ignore him, belittles him, when he knows, he has always known, has always said this would happen, he had always warned them, and nobody listened to him, only to Rogers, and couldn’t they see that they can’t survive like this?

“What is wrong with me?” Tony asks. “Why don’t you ask him that?! Why don’t you ask yourself!”

“Tony—” Rhodey warns, and he rushes to Tony’s side and grabs him by the arm, but he’s pushed off by a rough shake and a step forward, as Tony marches right into Rogers’ face, straight to Barton and Romanov, unafraid, unstoppable.

“Are you all really so out of touch with reality that you think this is normal? Is this how you fought while you were playing cops and robbers – do you really think we can be a team if you just shove yourselves into danger at the first order and not once consider what you’re doing!”

“I know it was reckless—” Rogers says, attempting an apology, but Tony refuses to hear it.

Do you?!” Tony looks at him with wide eyes. “I don’t think you do! I don’t think any of you have any idea of how serious this really is, and you have no idea that if you keep doing little stunts like this, you’re going to get us all killed!”

Tony had to spend a long time figuring out how to fight by himself since the team split. It wasn’t the same as working alone as Iron Man, not anymore, not like it was at the beginning. It couldn’t be. It was like the world had gotten bigger – and it had. His world had gotten bigger, because now he knew Earth was just the start, and there were other things out there, bigger things, that he needed to worry about. You can’t close that door after it’s been opened, no matter how hard you try. All the bullshit Tony had faced at first, he will admit, he brought it onto himself; Obie, Vanko, Killian. He caused them, one way or another. He won’t deny it. But even then, even with how hard it had been to deal with them, they had been only human. People.

And it’s not the same, it just isn’t, to fight a guy that’s human, and to fight something else, that comes from space, and you have no idea how to beat it.

Tony had to prepare, and all of a sudden, he had no team to guard his back. In some worse days, he almost believed he never actually did, and he was losing time every single day he spent without doing something about it. So he got to work. He made suits, he made plans. Jackhammers to compensate the lack of other heavy-hitters to help him, cameras to the back of his armor because no one would be watching his six, a metal sternum so it couldn’t be broken so easily again when someone tried to shove a shield into it! He did it all, he did everything he could so he would be able to fight on his own, because he couldn’t count on anyone else.

But most of all, his brain had to change. His attitude, his quote-unquote: “work ethic” had to change, his lawyers liked to say. The unfortunate necessity to become the face-front of the Accords, the leading example to guide the public opinion on superheroes and enhanced people in the right direction – Tony, who had never been a good example for anything or anyone in his life, he had to change.

He couldn’t be the same Tony who was working on his own when he was dying from Palladium poisoning, he couldn’t be that wild card whose only plan was “attack”. He changed for the Accords, he changed for Pepper, he changed for Peter, and for himself. Those two years after the Accords were first implemented where absolute hell, yes, with the Compound’s empty hallways and the ghosts of happy memories that now couldn’t be trusted anymore – but they had also been some of the most important years of Tony’s life.

Tony had learned many lessons in his years. He learned them with Afghanistan, with Obie, with the Palladium, with Killian.

He learned his lesson with the Accords too.

Tony has to be ready to act alone, always. He has to be ready to throw himself onto the wire because no one will do it for him.

He has to do whatever it takes. Even if he does it alone.

“Who are you to talk, Tony?” Clint bellows, and even though Natasha restrains him with a sure grip on his shoulders, it’s not enough to contain the rage that he shoots at Tony with his mere words. “Huh? Who are you to talk about being reckless?”

“I was the one cleaning up your messes after you destroyed an entire airport in Germany! I was the one working with the Accords because I didn’t want to be reckless, because I wanted us to be careful, while you all decided that following Rogers to whatever he wanted to go was a smart thing. Frankly admiring, how much loyalty you can have, considering how little you knew about what was really going on while you were playing house.”

Tony is treading on dangerous ground. He knows, because he’s doing it on purpose, he’s doing it to hurt, and he can see by the way Barton’s eyes flash that he’s hitting very close to home.

“You don’t talk about my family.” Clint threatens.

Clint.” Rogers barks, a roaring reprimand – and it enrages him how Barton visibly steps back, how he just obeys, even if his face clearly shows how much he wishes he could bash Tony’s face in. Tony’s not concerned, he’s not scared; Let Barton try to hit him, Tony will have the armor on and a fist to his nose faster than Barton can blink.

But he steps back, like Rogers warned him to, and here lies the problem. They will always follow Rogers, and Tony cannot work with him. He thought he could, or he tried to convince himself that he could, but he sees now that that was a lie.

“What you don’t understand is that you can’t just follow orders blindly! You can’t – the only way we can actually succeed in taking that Gauntlet back is if we’re ready, if we’re together, and what happened today was more than enough proof that we’re not anywhere near that—"

“So instead you want us to follow you blindly? That’s what you want?”

This is ridiculous. They don’t understand. They really don’t.

(You’ll do something you’ll regret.)

Maybe they should separate. You know what – maybe they should. They’ve got this all wrong, it’s the only explanation. He knows – he knows he was the one who said that they should stay together, and should be careful, and all of that, but it clearly isn’t working. Did you see what happened?

(Stop.)

(You’re not thinking straight.)

(Stop it, Tony.)

How is it possible they’ve come to this point, though?! How?!

He has every right to be worried! He’s only right to panic about this, okay! Someone has to! This shit is serious, it’s so serious, didn’t you see? They can’t – this can’t happen again. It can’t, they have no time, they have three months and as awful as it is, they can’t be wasting that time being dragged by whatever whims the others may have or their convoluted ways of dealing with whatever fucked up hierarchy they assigned to themselves.

Tony can’t belong to that team. No matter how much he wishes he could. How he desperately wishes they could go back – they can’t.

“Can’t believe I thought you were better than this.” Barton scoffs. “Go to hell, Stark.”

Me?” Tony laughs, a horrible, derisive, absolutely vile sound.

When. When had Barton thought better of him? At the Raft, when he spit at the sight of Tony and called him a backstabber, even though he literally broke a promise to his wife and children to help Rogers in a fight he had no business starting anyway? Had Barton thought better of him when he accepted the help of SI’s legal team when his sentence was being discussed after he signed the plea nearly eighteen months after his escape from the Raft, but not once sent Tony a message after his sentence got passed, or even reduced to mere house arrest, instead retreating to his little hideaway as if nothing had happened?

Clint is a goddamned asshole.

“You really think this is about me. You really think, even now, that I’m doing this out of some secret evil plan.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Actually it would be. It would, because nothing I’ve done, nothing, was meant to tear us apart, it was all to protect us! To protect us from becoming this!”

“And you’ve done a great job, can’t you tell!?” Barton yells. “I lost my wife, Tony! I lost my children!”

“And I lost my son!”

The scream echoes through the walls, sharp and piercing like glass, and if anyone has any particularly shocking reaction to his screams, it’s not like Tony can see them; Not past the haze of rage and tears that cloud his eyes and judgment, that forces him to lock eyes with Barton and not even blink, refusing to give him a single inch after Barton has just tried to throw everything on Tony’s face as if Tony was the most horrible person he had ever seen. Barton’s teeth click together audibly when he shuts his mouth in a quick, startling movement, lips twisting in an ugly expression, his eyes dark and full of emotions Tony cannot comprehend, not when his mind is stripped so bare.

He’s done with this. Done with holding all this emotion back, done with hiding it beneath plastic smiles and heavy silences, with averted gazes and fake forgiveness – he does not forgive them. He has fault in it too, he knows, he feels it in the marrow of his bones, in the corner of his brain that will collect and replay all the memories of his failures, old and new, over and over again every single day; He knows he’s not blameless, but he will not forgive them for leaving, and then acting as if the blame is his’ alone to shoulder. It’s not. They are all a failure.

Maybe once, Tony would have done anything he needed to for them, to appease their anger and resentment, he would have broken his own back to ensure the team would be brought together again – but not anymore. Because Tony has learned his lesson, and he has something much more important to rescue now, someone much more important than these people who seem to think he’s the scum of the Earth.

“I lost my kid, and I’m gonna do whatever I need to bring him back.” Tony threatens – and that’s exactly what it is. A threat. “And I’m not going to sit here and watch you kill yourselves just because you can’t work as a real team! I’m gonna go, and I’m gonna find him, alone if I have to, and I will kill the bastard and bring the kid back even if none of you help me. You wanna go throw yourselves into the fire and see if it works out for you? That’s great. But I am willing to bet everything I have to save that kid and if splitting this team is the only way to do it – That’s fine by me.”

“We are not gonna split.” Natasha says, with immensurable distress in her voice, and her gaze, when Tony finally manages to cease his staring contest with Barton to look at her directly, is fiery and pointed, as lethal as one of knives, unbreakable determination. “Stop it, Tony.”

Stop it, Tony.

Maybe he should.

Maybe he should stop.

He’s tired.

He’s tired of feeling shitty, he’s tired of being tired. He wants to stop, and he doesn’t at the same time. He thought he was over this. He didn’t know he was capable of feeling this way, but apparently he is; and screaming it all out, yelling at Barton’s face – it made him feel better, but at the same time, it didn’t. So what else can he do?

He’s just… tired. He doesn’t know how else to say it. It drains him, knowing he needs backup to have a bigger chance of this crazy plan working, but the only people he can count on is them. And ‘count on’ is a very, very frail concept, because what exactly does that mean, when they were the ones that so quickly turned their backs against him when he tried to show them they were doing something wrong?

He has nothing left to give them. He can’t give them trust, he can’t give them even the slightest benefit of the doubt.

He doesn’t know how to make this work. He really doesn’t.

Tony is a mechanic, he builds things, he fixes things. But this, even to him, seems to be beyond repair.

He takes in a deep, deep breath, throat convulsing in a garbled, wet movement that makes him feel gross, humiliated and shamed, when he realizes these are the tears his body is so insistently trying to produce, but still fails in doing so. Like his body doesn’t have the energy to finish the task and fully let him break down. He feels like he’s breaking down – almost collapsing, but not quite there yet, a crumbling building that’s somehow still standing, because one single column refuses to give into the weight.

Maybe he should’ve been proud of this resilience, but right now, it only feels like a burden.

Because there’s nothing to be proud of in failure. There’s nothing to be proud of in realizing that is his resilience that’s about to put him in a position he told himself he never would be in again.

“We can’t answer distress calls anymore.” He says, in a hollow tone. It’s not a scream, it’s not even a demand. Maybe just a statement. Just a broken, reluctant statement, and nothing else.

The others make weird, desperate inquisitive noises around him, but Tony only shakes his head.

“We can’t—” He chokes, and he has to shake his head and clean his throat to continue. “Because we now might have even less than three months to deal with all of this, and if we die before it happens, then it never gets solved. We talked about rescuing civilians and trust me – any other day, I would do it –, but what happened out there to me was proof enough that no matter how many people we try to save when that alarm blares, it will never be enough. Because we already failed them.

He does risk a look around the room, because he needs – he needs to make sure they’re listening, that they’re getting it, because they only have one shot at this, and Tony can’t have them failing because of misunderstandings again.

They all seem utterly and completely heartbroken. Rhodey, right next to Tony, looks so sad it sends a rush of worry through Tony’s body, just like Thor, who stares at his feet with a face so conflicted Tony barely even knows how to interpret it.

It’s bad, saying this.

He’s going to say it anyway.

“We failed them, because we should have been a team, and we were not. Not now, maybe not ever. We should have been ready to save them from the actual threat, which was Thanos, like I told you it would be, and we didn’t!”

Some of them flinch. Thor, Natasha, Bruce. Some of them just stare. Nebula and Rocket look away, and Agents Carter and Ross breathe in deep, cautious, chiding and pity in their eyes mixing so seamlessly they’re almost indistinguishable from one another.

Tony had forgotten about them. They don’t deserve to be here. They don’t deserve to be hearing this.

Just more collateral damage. More and more and more, more casualties, more guilt, it never fucking ends.

“We were arrogant, and we were reckless, and now everyone is paying the price for it – but I have too much riding on this, this is too important to me to fuck it up because you all can’t take it seriously! I will not follow you into battle, any of you, if what’s going to happen is a repeat of what happened today!”

“And what do you want us to do?” Natasha asks, almost in an accusation, sounding hurt; And Tony doesn’t know if she’s trying to pick a fight or not, but suddenly, Tony’s rage just disappears in a thin wisp of breath, dissolving into nothingness like the ashes did, and his shoulders drop, and the entire weight of the world falls upon him in a second.

“I don’t know.” Tony admits, and pauses. “I want us to stop… this. We have to stop it. We can’t answer any more calls, ‘cause we have no time, and we need to find Thanos before it all runs out. What can we do, if we go out there? These people have nowhere to go. Nowhere is safe. The only way to make it safe is to get that Gauntlet, and only way to make it faster is to go back, and work on it so we can fix this.”

“And you say you’re not evil.” Barton murmurs, and it hits Tony like a punch like nothing else had, genuinely hurting. “But you want to leave all those people to die while you hide in your lab.”

“While I try to find a way to fix this to bring your family back. You asshole.”

Barton charges forward, and it all happens so fast—

Natasha and Rogers jump to stop him, grabbing him by the arms and pushing him on the chest, screaming and ordering him to calm down, as hands reach and grab Tony to pull him back, and he struggles on instinct, because he needs his hands free to fight back, they can’t keep him trapped. But they won’t let him. In a split second, everyone is rushing, and as Agents Carter and Ross jump to put themselves between Barton and Tony, so do Rhodey and Nebula, who step forward to half-shield Tony from Barton’s view, while Bruce insistently pulls him towards the door, his grip relentless and firm, far too strong to be comforting.

None of the people screaming are actually Barton or Tony. Rocket yells in indignation, Ross yells in vain attempts to install order in the group, Rhodey yells at Barton to step back, Natasha yells at Barton to calm down. Bruce begs Tony to walk away, looking a little green around the gills, and Nebula orders him the same, though she does not look back to tell him so, her eyes locked onto Barton like predator to prey.

Barton doesn’t say a word. He just fumes and breathes, locked in Natasha’s and Rogers’ restraints, grunts and moans escaping his throat as if he’s trying with all his might to blast through their hold and reach Tony, even though his struggle in their arms is much less violent than it should be, much less vicious than his eyes and the force in his locked jaw and gritted teeth.

He looks like he wants to scream at Tony, but can’t. Maybe his throat his closed tight, so tight he almost can’t breathe. Maybe his tongue is swollen and too big and the words don’t have room to fit in his mouth, too heavy, too horrible, too much to squeeze from the vastness of the hole inside his chest and into the bitter reality of the room.

Like Tony’s.

Maybe.

How could Tony know?

Tony looks back at him, chin raised, and for a moment, the weirdest sense of equality hits him; Just as unexpected as the calm, as the completely abnormal reaction to just stand there and not do anything, even as Barton goes unhinged and crazed right before his eyes. Good. Good. Tony is unhinged and crazed too. He is, deep inside, and right there underneath the skin, simmering and ready to burst, even though he must look perfectly collected, even apathetic, on the outside. He’s not. And in a twisted morbid way, he’s glad.

If they separate, he won’t care. He won’t. If Barton leaves, and Natasha follows as she always has, and Rogers turns his back like he always does – Tony will not chase after them.

Just as he doesn’t chase when Barton stops struggling, heaving in stuttering breaths through his parted lips, staring at Tony like a wild animal, before turning around and shaking the others off, to stalk into the Compound and disappear into the halls before anyone can stop him. Natasha chases him, but Tony doesn’t.

If this is the final straw, then fine. Then they’re really not supposed to be back together, in the end. Tony will adapt to their absence, he has done it once, he can do it again. Rhodey will help him. Maybe Bruce will too, and Nebula. Maybe even Rocket and Thor. If Carter and Ross rather go along with the others, that’s fine too; They probably will, seeing as Carter already has, once. Tony doesn’t care. He will not care.

He will do this with or without them.

He doesn’t care.

 

 

(That is not true.)

 

 

Tony does not move. When Barton leaves, the others deflate slowly, as balloons slowly losing air, the sudden spike in adrenaline way too high for them to comfortably shift back into calm after the explosive exchange, so as their hands go down from defensive positions and they retreat from aggressive stances, they all just… breathe.

They breathe, in silence, and no one does anything.

Because they’re all afraid of breaking something if they move.

After a long, painful beat, from where he still stands facing the corridor Barton and Romanov disappeared to, Rogers turns around and, for a brief, unexpected moment, he and Tony lock eyes.

And there’s something in his gaze Tony cannot decipher, not in his precarious state of mind, but something that is not, with all certainty, the aggression and disapproval Tony had expected from him. Maybe it’s shock, and it would be fair, because this is the first time Steve has ever seen him like this, the first time Tony is actually fighting them not to apologize or to make peace through their always violent, fucked up ways – but a genuine fight, to hurt, even if it hurts him right back. Maybe. Tony should be shocked at himself too, he thinks, but he’s not. He really isn’t feeling much at all beyond distress.

Maybe it’s sadness. Tony wouldn’t put it past him. Though gone are the days Tony believes Steve is actually as innocent and well-intentioned as he looks, there is one thing about him Tony will never deny: That he’s an idealistic idiot. Fair is fair, takes one to know one. Maybe he thought, like Tony had, like he had foolishly dreamed, that this could be salvaged yet. Maybe the shoe only dropped for Tony, and Steve is still catching up. Or refusing to catch up. Equally as possible. Annoyingly probable.

Maybe he’s about to give Tony one of his sad speeches on how “he gets that Tony is upset, but that was unnecessary”, or how “that’s unfair, they all lost something, and Tony should stop blaming them and focus on what’s really important here”.

Tony doesn’t want to hear it.

He turns around, and walks out too, pushing past everyone’s hold so easily they can barely try to stall him or call his name before he’s out of the lounge.

 

 

“FRI?”

A soft, caring pause – far more considerate than he deserves. “Yes, Boss?”

“Can you contact May Parker?” Tony sniffs, and he pretends he doesn’t, because he knows FRIDAY won’t ask about it, but still – it hurts his nose, the cold air in his wet, sore nostrils, just like his eyes ache and his temples thump in the same unsteady, painful beat as his heart. “Ask her… Just ask her if she’s okay.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks, baby.” Tony hums, and then, in the cold dark of his empty bedroom, just because he knows no one will hear him, he asks:

“…And can you call 13-K?”

“Boss.” FRIDAY says, careful, so full of sorrow, so human. “I have attempted contact with 13-K four times since Thanos’ attack, twice after your disappearance, and twice after your return. There was no response.”

“Try it again. Just one more time.”

Another pause. Longer this time. Tony sits there and waits with his hands twisting in impatience, his teeth gnawing at the inside of his cheek in nervousness, chest tight with fear and hope, with dread and plea, but it takes so long – so long that the hope begins to dwindle and die, too long, long enough for the please on his tongue to transform from concern to complete and utter grief.

“I’m sorry, Boss.” FRIDAY says. “No reply.”

And Tony knew.

He knew.

 

(It doesn’t stop him from crying)

Notes:

We're entering a really rough patch now. Lots of tears incoming. I'd say I'm sorry, but someone is gotta do it. If these characters won't open up by themselves, guess I'll just have to pry the emotions and trauma out of them by force.

Get ready for that.

I hope you all have been well, in light of what's been happening during this past month. I've been in quarantine for a few weeks now, and it's been stressful and hectic - but I am okay, thankfully, and I hope you all are too, and please, be safe. Take care of yourselves both physically and mentally, keep in touch with family, friends, and loved ones through whatever means feel more comfortable to you, and remember - we are practicing social distancing as a safety measure, but we are not alone.

Stay safe, friends! And I hope you enjoyed this chapter :) I'll see you all in the next one <3

Chapter 16: Chapter 16

Notes:

What does a hero fight for? Noble things, surely. Integrity. Dignity. Justice. It's not good publicity to be a hero with selfish reasons, is it?

What about a man? What does a man fight for?

We've been talking about some really serious stuff so far, but there is still something we have yet to address in any way, shape, or form, not only me - but many people in this fandom, I believe. Not because we don't see it, no. We see it, but it's so much easier to talk about it when it's in a happy tone. This is the kind of stuff that sparks a very particular kind of sadness, of pain, because like I said: Family is complicated. And in a universe such as this, where daddy issues are undoubtedly a very prevalent problem, we can't really be surprised at how extremely powerful the subject of children is.

So let's talk about children. All the ones they've loved - all the ones they've lost.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“What are you doing here?”

It comes out harsh. Almost unforgiving.

He doesn’t mean to. It’s just—

It’s shock. It’s exhaustion and surprise and fear, all jumbled together – but he doesn’t mean it. He has no intentions of starting a fight, another fight, not with how completely awful he’s feeling, body slumped and uncomfortably hollow, a constant ache in his breast as if the loud pounding of his heart was a fist that had bruised him from the inside out, his night spent in sleepless fits and cold tears streaming down his cheek into his pillow, the other side of the mattress empty and untouched.

He’s miserable. He doesn’t want to fight.

He didn’t mean—

God, his head is throbbing.

“FRIDAY said it’d be fine.” Nebula says, a little too meek, and Rocket says absolutely nothing at all, but he makes a motion as if he’s uncertain if he should jump down from the spot where he’d been sitting on the table, perfectly comfortable before Tony barged in and nearly shouted at them for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

Tony raises a hand, motioning them to stop, and they do, though out of relief or fear he’s not sure; Because they don’t relax, but they also don’t act like they’ve just been scolded anymore. They just watch him warily, like he’s a wild animal they’re trying not to provoke into attacking. It makes him feel like shit in a very specific way. He has to take a few deep breaths before he can decide what to say, because he feels so goddamn short-winded and tired, and it takes genuine effort to make his voice light and non-threatening.

“Of course.” He exhales, and tries to put on a reassuring smile, though he knows it barely tugs at the edges of his lips, more grimace than happiness. “It’s fine. Yeah. You’re always welcome, Smurfette. You too, furball.”

It’s fake. His reassurance, his poor attempt at lightness, it’s all fake.

But who can he really fool, after that frankly embarrassing display of absolute rage right the night before?

Rocket and Nebula share a look, half disgruntled, half reluctant, and Tony sighs raggedly, pinching his nose as if he could somehow abate the stinging soreness in his eyes, before standing up straight and striding as confidently as he can into the workshop, steps loose and lazy, despite the fact that he pulls his worn hoodie closer to his body, the chill so intense not even the insulation of the building and the soft protection of his duvet could have kept it away.

“I just—” He shrugs, sinking his teeth in his lip just out of awkwardness. “Didn’t think I’d find anyone here.”

“Is that your way of tellin’ us you want us to leave?” Rocket asks, easing back into his position on the table.

“No, I’m – I’m glad you’re here.” Tony says, nodding uncertainly, staring at the floor beneath Rocket’s dangling legs. “We need to work. Well, I need to work. You can join me, if you want. Wasn’t sure anyone would be up to help after what happened yesterday, but if anyone would still be in for it, I guess it would be you two. Not really surprised. I’m just sorry you had to see that. You… really didn’t need to.”

“You’re right, we didn’t.” Nebula says, as sharp and curt as ever, but her face carries no anger or annoyance, tone surprisingly understanding. “But it explained a lot.”

Tony blinks, and something uneasy twists in his stomach. “Do I wanna know what that means?”

They share another look, and Tony starts to feel distinctly out of place in his own workshop.

He kind of wants to ask what they’re doing here, but at the same time, he’d rather just assume they’re here to continue with their research and just… never talk about the others again. That would be great, he feels like. Probably a mess if anyone else decides to join them at any point – but they probably won’t, Tony reminds himself – but that’s fine. Rhodey is probably the only one who will eventually make his way down to the shop; And it’s weird he hasn’t already, if he’s being honest, weird that he’s not here to drill Tony about what the hell was that yesterday at the first opportunity.

But then, Tony remembers Pepper, and he realizes Rhodey might have gone looking for her first, like he sometimes did, and—

Tony did not tell him what happened. Between them. Him and Pepper.

And Pepper will tell him. She won’t realize it, and she will tell him.

Shit.

Maybe he should turn back and find Rhodey. Before it all comes crashing down even harder.

Goddammit. Goddammit. Shit.

“I used to try to kill my sister.” Nebula says, completely out of nowhere, and Tony jerks in surprise, his entire brain stopping in its tracks so suddenly it's disorienting. “We didn’t have the best relationship.”

What?

Wait, hold on. He’s missed something, didn’t he?

He must have.

What?

He opens his mouth, not even sure of what he wants to say, so he opens and closes it like a fish before finally managing to ask, “Sorry, are we talking about that same… sister? Gamora? Quill’s… whatever, girlfriend, or something?”

“It’s such a childish concept, girlfriend. I really don’t see what she saw in that idiot, but it was either him or the tree, I suppose.” Nebula ponders, missing the entire point of Tony’s question. “What I’m trying to say is that we had our differences. We fought a lot.”

Tony looks at Rocket, desperate for clarification, and the total lack of surprise or confusion in his expression is even more baffling to Tony.

What the hell are they talking about? Is this… Is this their way of making conversation? Is – Is this what their attempt to have a vulnerable moment is like? Just – blurt out sensitive information with no warning on someone who is kinda virtually a stranger?

Kinda like a blunt hit to the head, isn’t it? Jesus.

Okay, then. Sure, they can call it that. It’s such a… Such an intense description, I tried to kill my sister; and coming from anyone else, Tony would not have taken it at face value, but this is Nebula – and despite their brief acquaintance, Tony sure as hell knows better than to believe this is an exaggeration. Which means Nebula truly did try to kill her sister at some point. The same sister she now promises to split the universe open and bring hell upon her captor for, which is not the contradiction Tony was expecting at all.

That doesn’t make much sense to him, honestly.

Nebula didn’t sound like she was fond of any other of Thanos’ charges other than Gamora. Actually, when Tony thinks about it, he realizes that Ebony Maw and Proxima Midnight, if he’s remembering their names right, technically are also Nebula’s siblings, and Tony is pretty sure he did not mistake the venom and disgust in her voice at the sight of them on FRIDAY’s camera feeds the first time around. She doesn’t like them. Maybe she hates them as much as she hates Thanos, but Tony can’t be sure. But – if he dares to assume, he doesn’t think Nebula could have had any kind feelings for her other siblings other than aversion, because those siblings are like Thanos. He captures them and changes them, she’d told him, and makes them follow his lead. They are extensions of his mania, of his arrogance and villainy, and seeing as they obeyed his commands, and Nebula clearly defied them, Tony just assumed… she and Gamora would be the defectors. The only two who managed to get out. That they had a bond.

The kind of bond Nebula could kill her captor for, no matter the cost. Tony can understand.

What he cannot understand is this admission – of Nebula trying to kill her sister. Of course, he doesn’t know what happened, he can’t assume, but he did – assume, he did assume, even if unconsciously, that their relationship had been good.

(But it’s complicated.)

(Isn’t it.)

(It’s always complicated.)

Tony watches her face, the way a shadow of muted grief passes through her midnight eyes, like dying stars in the depths of the vast space, and, for the briefest of moments, Tony remembers Thor, Thor and Loki – and the quiet, somber fondness lacing through the whispered memories Thor weaved right before Tony’s eyes in the morning cold of this same workshop, where secrets and silent hurts come to be pried open and bleed, apparently, and he imagines, as someone who grew up so very alone, what it must have been like, to grow up… not alone; And yet, not being able to live peacefully with someone who you’re supposed to share such a deep connection with.

(Well.)

(He did, in a way.)

(The ghost of Steve Rogers never really left Tony’s home, not while Howard still lived in inside its walls.)

(A competition he had no hope of winning.)

(Not against a dead man.)

(Or against the living one either.)

“Not enough not to love her.” Tony says, as kindly as he can, gently approaching to lean against the table Rocket sits at, all of them close together in a small, secretive group, an illusion of safety that seems unnecessary, but also so comforting in the wide emptiness of Tony’s clinical and frigid workshop. “I guess?”

“No.” Nebula admits, in a pained voice, and it hurts him to see her eyes lower to her boots, an emotion that feels misplaced in her strong, so confident face, a smallness that is so wrong for the strength Tony knows she carries. “Out of all creatures Thanos enslaved as his children, Gamora was the only one… I could relate to. That I could stand, even. We were not taught to bond with each other, much less trust each other, but we couldn’t help it. It was our weakness. Thanos always made sure to remind us of that.”

Like torturing one to make the other suffer.

The thought still makes Tony’s blood boil with red-hot rage.

“I was jealous of her.” Nebula confesses. “And I’m not proud of it. Every time we’d fight, every time I’d lose, he would rub it in my face.”

“That’s not your fault.” Tony quickly interjects, before he can stop himself. “Thanos is – he’s a maniac. Of course, you know that – but c’mon, how can anyone really – it’s not your fault.”

(She—)

“How old were you?” Tony whispers. “When he took you?”

Nebula pauses.

“Young.” She says. “Just like Gamora.”

Children. Children of Thanos, he called them, as if they were precious, as if being under his charge was something to be proud of, something good – twisting them into his perfect little puppets, so he could lay back and watch as they destroyed worlds while he collected the Stones as if they were nothing more than trinkets. It’s vile in a way Tony can’t even put into words. The mere idea that Nebula, Nebula, who Tony knows is a good person, who clearly isn’t into whatever evil and fucked up ideas her father figure tried to inject into her like a lethal drug, being taken under his wing as a literal child; How she and Gamora must have felt, two kids trapped in a prison they were yet too young to understand, but old enough to learn, to suffer, to be molded into something they were never meant to be in the first place.

And it scarred them. It scarred them and Tony can tell, can tell in the way even Nebula, who is as fierce as they can be, who growls and snaps and refuses to bend, how even she hunches her shoulders and looks away, how her metal fingers dig into the flesh of her arm, a gesture that tells more of her discomfort than her words ever could.

“It’s not your fault, Nebula.” Tony says, because he has to – maybe it doesn’t help, but he has to say it, because – he can’t stand the idea of sitting here and watching Nebula fold herself to the mere memory of Thanos, of what he put her through, but he can’t take her pain away just like he can’t erase his own, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try.

“I know that.” Nebula huffs, slightly annoyed. “But it doesn’t make it any easier. I was weak, and foolish, and I let him get into my head and make me believe she was my enemy, not my ally. I tried to beat her, and she was better, and I resented her for it because he taught me that’s what I was supposed to do. The only thing that kept me going was the idea that I would beat her someday, and then maybe I would be his favorite. I had nothing, so all I wanted was to be his favorite.

It hurts. It hurts to hear that, to feel it so deeply in his own body because he – he knows what that feels like. He won’t say it, he won’t, this is not his moment, it’s not his life, and he doesn’t want Nebula to think that he’s comparing them or something; Undoubtably, she had it worse. It’s not even quantifiable. She’d been captured, kidnapped and brainwashed, at least in some ways, conditioned to grow up loyal to the biggest bastard in the universe – but he won’t deny it tugs at his heartstrings in a very specific way, that it… jostles and prods at old memories and feelings he wishes he could erase, sour reminders that, even with the mercy of time, are still strong enough to leave a bad taste on his tongue, like poison, like—

Like cheap whiskey. Or bourbon, or gin. Whatever was the drink of the day.

The collection was extensive. Tony learned their taste young.

But bitterness – he learned even younger.

“But then she left.” Nebula shrugs, but not nonchalantly. Defensive, a little hurt, maybe. Something awkward on her stiff shoulders, a fragility she’s not accustomed to. “She left, she found Quill, and the rest of those… she chose them instead of everything Thanos planned to give her, instead of me, and she got herself a – a family.” She growls the word, like it’s an offense. Family. Like it’s absurd and ridiculous and childish and she wants it so, so badly. A tone that, in anyone else’s throat, would have been laced with tears and garbles, but in Nebula’s, it’s just raw feeling and agony, sharp and violent, honest to the core, just like her. “And I knew I would never be a part of it. So I tried to kill her.”

The jealousy in her voice, her eyes, her everything – it’s so overwhelming.

If it’s hard to watch, Tony can’t even imagine what it must be for her to feel it. For all of Tony’s issues about the subject of family, he can’t deny that, in many ways, he has one – Rhodey and Pepper, no matter what their relationship is now, Tony always knew he could count on them. Happy too, he thinks with immeasurable grief. Even in his childhood, long before any of them had come into his life, despite how hard it was sometimes in his family home, Tony had his mother, as difficult as it might have been for them to simply be, sometimes, and he had Jarvis and Ana, and he knows, without a doubt, that he wouldn’t be the man he is today without their care during his earlier years.

And his father. Tony is horribly sentimental, he knows, and he won’t waste his breath trying to convince people that Howard didn’t screw him up one way or another, because he knows better, he’s not that delusional – but there’s still a small part of him, the part that got shamefully giddy at the first sight of Badassium’s molecular structure, who still got something trembling inside his chest when Howard Stark, in words that should have never made Tony feel the way it felt, told him that Tony was his greatest creation. Sometimes, Tony’s brain will tell him that’s a lie, a comforting lie, but a lie nonetheless, and if he chooses to believe that or not – it simply varies from day to day.

Howard had been… terrible. Terrible, just terrible, most days he’d just been shit at being a father – but Tony still thinks of him as family, and isn’t that exactly what Nebula is talking about, sort of? Not exactly, but what he realizes is that he knows what she’s talking about. That jealousy, that feeling of desperately wanting to be enough, being mad for not being, and being even more so for even feeling bad about it. And Nebula has even more reasons to feel that way, definitely more than Tony, because it sounds like she and Gamora had a… understanding, of sorts. At the very least, a connection, as horrible as it might have been, forged in the necessity to survive Thanos.

What excuse does Tony have, for his… ridiculously clingy behavior, his apparent inability to cut off these feelings for people who clearly cannot give him the same loyalty back?

He shakes his head, forcefully trying to dispel these thoughts, exhaling a harsh breath in a futile attempt to calm himself down. Nebula notices, and looks at him with questioning, intensely measuring eyes, awfully knowing; And for the second time since they’ve met, which hasn’t even been all that long ago, Tony finds himself taken aback with just how much he can see himself in her.

Tony has never tried to kill someone out of jealousy.

(Well.)

(Siberia—)

Not really.

He never meant to kill. He has reacted badly before, it’s true, but he never meant to kill. Never. Not Obie, not—

Never.

He suspects neither did she. She never truly meant to kill her sister. If she had, she would have succeeded. But she didn’t, did she?

He won’t ask. But somehow, he knows he’s right.

Rocket turns his head, eyes gleaming in a conflicted expression, and to Tony’s surprise, he raises a hand and places it on Nebula’s arm, not simply touching but holding, fingers purposeful, and she lets him. Something about the gesture seems both tentative and sure, like a comfort that has never before been accepted but now refuses to be ignored, something – Tony would call it friendly, but more, deep trust and confidence, a—

Support. Loyalty.

The only reason why Tony’s breath doesn’t hitch is simply because he stops breathing at all, just for a second, because he feels like he’s watching something happen right now, something big, and not even the elusive and quiet interior of the workshop is enough to mask the feeling that suddenly rushes through him with unrelenting force.

The moment should be mundane, should be simple, but it’s not. He doesn’t know how he knows this, but something in the air, something in the quiet look Rocket and Nebula exchange; Tony has a quick, but very startling realization that he is not the one who feels like Nebula’s story hits a little too close to home. Though he knows essentially nothing about Rocket, or whatever the relationship between them might be, if it’s amicable or not – Tony had assumed they were teammates, too, that they both were part of Quill’s team, but hasn’t he just learned that his assumptions had been, at the very least, a little misguided? –, but if they weren’t friends before, Tony thinks… Tony thinks he’s witnessing them becoming friends right before his eyes.

Or at the very least, very fierce, motivated, powerful allies.

But allies feels wrong. Feels clinical, too impersonal for this. For how raw they are.

Friends, then. Teammates. Family.

Being witness to this makes Tony’s chest hurt in the best and worst of ways.  

“She was my sister.” Nebula declares – affirms, challenges, like her love and devotion simply can’t be mild and gentle; they are ferocious and vengeful, bitingly loyal, and no one, not Thanos nor herself, will stop her from getting what she wants, getting her sister the justice she deserves; and with Rocket’s hand placed on her arm, Tony finds himself genuinely moved with how strongly it all comes together, the sight of them filling him with the most unexpected awe. “And I hated her and I loved her, and I will never forgive him for what he did.”

She stares him down, face tilted down but eyes wide, locked on Tony’s face like a laser aim, both wary and uncaring about his reaction to her words, and he feels completely shaken. It’s not meant to intimidate him, not quite; It’s… It’s the unnerving, unknown edge between desperately wanting support but not being willing to admit it, and the resolve to act even without it, but not wanting to do it alone all the same.

He gets it.

He gets it now. Honestly, it makes an astonishing amount of sense, and maybe that’s what shocks Tony to his core, how much sense it makes to him.   

Tony had never questioned Nebula’s resolve to hunt Thanos, nor her reasons – how could he, when the very essence of her inspires his trust in the weirdest of ways, and her demeanor is so transparent, so honest and determined that Tony feels like he has no choice but believe the words she says? Maybe Tony should know better, but he doesn’t, not really, does he? But he won’t deny it’s oddly comforting to know what’s on her mind, what is keeping her here, though murderous desire for revenge would have been more than enough for Tony, at this point. But it’s… nice, if he can call it that, to find in her rage some sort of echo of his own, to discover that their purpose is not that far off from one another, and maybe, just maybe, even if the others leave, these two can stay and they might be able to do some good together.

Christ. The surge of affection that he feels for her is frankly embarrassing. In a way, for Rocket too – for his presence and his silent comfort during what very clearly is a very difficult moment for Nebula, a softness Tony knows for sure, even without asking, that is not easy for either of them. Tony is a foolish old man, he knows by now that things like these make him mellow. He won’t ever admit it, but he knows.

If he had the words, maybe he would thank her for her show of confidence, though he doubts she would be moved by it, or even want such a thing. Tony knows that everyone has a limit on how many mushy feelings they are able to handle at a time, and he suspects Nebula’s tolerance isn’t all that high. Or maybe he would be brave enough to share his own feelings, his own story, but years of habit of restraining himself from sharing even the slightest bit of personal information in fear of going too far and revealing too much, and his very real and very insisted insecurities about the times where he ignored that restraint and it backfired so spectacularly – it all makes him a very lousy shoulder to cry on, honestly.

But maybe Nebula can sympathize with that. Maybe she can understand.

Maybe even more than most.

“And we’re gonna get him.” Tony insists, as a compromise, as the only thing he can possibly say that it won’t overwhelm either of them – and he feels, right down to his soul, that it’s worth it, that it’s good, and that it’s true. “We’re gonna find him, and get your sister back.”

“We are.” Nebula pauses. “But we need a team.”

 

Ah.

 

Okay.

There it is.

He really should have seen this coming, shouldn’t he.

Goddammit, he’s always getting cornered in his own workshop, this is ridiculous. Shouldn’t they have a little more tact, considering it’s his house and all? Can’t they just… leave it alone and never talk about it again, which is Tony’s preferred method?

Bad Nebula. Baiting him with feelings. Bad, bad blue meanie.

Rocket must see something in his face that’s telling enough of Tony’s thoughts, because he scoffs and interrupts right off, even if a little awkward, aiming for irreverence but not quite making it. “Listen, I know we’re not ones to talk, but she does have a point on this.”

“I am telling you this as a daughter of Thanos.” Nebula cautions, going as far as taking half a step closer to make sure Tony cannot escape her stare. “You cannot beat him alone.”

He huffs, aggravated, feeling awkwardly caged. “I know that, I’ve tried—”

“Even in Titan, you had a team. It was not your team, but it was there, and they helped you. As much as they could.” Nebula interrupts, having none of Tony’s bullshit. “But I went alone, and I’ve had a training and experience like none of you here on Terra could ever imagine – Gamora might have been the best, but I was the second best, and he still got me. So we can’t get this wrong a second time. Because if I hadn’t gone alone, Thanos wouldn’t have caught me. And he wouldn’t have been able to use me to make Gamora talk.”

Tony’s mouth clicks shut painfully.

Because what can he say against that, really? Nothing.

“So I’m telling you to stop.  Because if you do this alone, he will kill you.”

“I don’t want to do this alone – I just said I will if I have to.” Tony stresses.

“What’s the difference?” Rocket raises a furry eyebrow, full of sarcasm.

“The difference is that I’m not the one refusing to do actual teamwork here!” Tony blurts out, exasperated.

“Kinda sounds like you are, though.”

“I’m not.

“So yelling at your teammates is something you usually do ‘round here? Does it work? It didn’t seem like it works.”

“That was—” Tony needs to take a step back, or else he’s gonna end up slapping the alien raccoon and he refuses to be goaded into this argument like a freaking child. “What are you saying, that I shouldn’t have warned them that what they’re doing is stupid? Because it is, and someone has to tell them – and if it wasn’t me, no one else would have said it! That’s just how it is, with them.”

“You could have decided on a plan during the travel.” Rocket points out, like it’s completely factual, and the despite this being the only thing he says with absolutely no sarcasm or derision whatsoever, it is the thing that makes Tony bristle like an angry cat the most. “You blamed them for actin’ with no plan, but you didn’t have one either, did you.”

“And you’ve commanded troops before.” Nebula reinforces, only adding fuel to the fire in Tony’s belly. “We saw the footage of your armor – you organized my sister’s idiotic family into an almost functional force. So why wouldn’t you do the same with your own team?”

“It’s…” Tony gapes, feeling horribly exposed. “It’s not like that, with us.”

“Then what is it like?” Rocket inquires, a little skeptical.

“It was always him. He gives the orders, and we just…” Tony makes a vague gesture with his hands, fully aware that it doesn’t really explain anything, but he doesn’t know how else to say it. How can he explain? Maybe at first it made sense, but over the years, as the fights with Pepper became more frequent, he became more and more aware that the Avengers’ dynamics had shifted into something Tony found extremely hard to put into words, even more so since Ultron. “We follow. Maybe that’s wrong – it is wrong. It is wrong for us to act so carelessly, that’s the whole thing that got us into this mess, but... I should have done something. I’ve been working alone for the past two years, I should know better.”

“But you’re not workin’ alone now.

“I might be.” Tony growls, with poorly concealed bitterness. “If any of them decide it’s not worth the hassle, they might just leave and I’ll have to go through with this alone.”

Rocket makes a snappy sound, like he’s offended. “What are we, Sakaaran trash? We’re here, we’re going to help you!”

“They won’t leave.” Nebula says, with eerie confidence, not giving Tony any time to ponder what the hell Sakaaran trash is supposed to mean.

“They have before.” He tells her with unnecessary mockery, as if she could have possibly any fault or even the slightest idea of why this entire debacle bothers Tony so much. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

And he doesn’t mean to sound like a petty teenager who didn’t got what he asked for his birthday, but that’s just how it comes off, and it’s too late to stop now. He’s said it, he’s bitter, and he can’t hide it, apparently. If he had the courage to tell them, to pry open his heart and explain in detail what happened, he wonders if they would understand – if Nebula, who once only knew to process her loss and abandonment by seeking violence against the sister who left her, instigated by her captor, or if Rocket, who holds Nebula’s arm and whose eyes go misty at the mention of the idea of family, if he could explain to them what exactly the Avengers had meant to him before they all fell apart like a house of cards, if they would understand. Tony knows what they’re trying to do, and in some other moment, maybe, he would at least have commended them for being clever, for—

(That’s not fair. Nebula is not doing this to manipulate him into agreeing.)

(She’s just trying to explain.)

He gets what they’re trying to do. Just because he can’t be grateful for their concern doesn’t mean he can’t see why they’re concerned in the first place, because they very well have reasons to be. After the shitshow that was their post-battle debrief the previous day, how could they not? But logic doesn’t erase all the ugly and angry emotions Tony has been bottling up inside for two damn years now, if it did, all of this would’ve been a hell lot easier. But it doesn’t! It doesn’t, and it’s not easy, and things like that fight, like the look in Barton’s eyes when he accused Tony of – of being a killer, of leaving civilians to fend for their own out of some disgusting sadistic amusement, it only proves more and more what Tony suspected for so many years, only to be proven right, over and over again, since 2016.

Tony has no place in that team. They might be a team, them, as dysfunctional and dependent of their harmful habits as they are, but he can’t possibly – there is no place for him to fit into, there hasn’t been since Ultron. They snap and fight and punch each other, but their forgiveness for each other’s mistakes seems endless; but where is any of that willingness, any of that trust when it comes to Tony? All it took was one argument and Barton almost decked him in the face.

(You goaded him into it.)

And Natasha beat him up at an airport and they’re still friends, so what the point? The problem is Tony. It’s always Tony.

What’s stopping them from leaving? Nothing.

The end of the world is stopping them, okay. That’s true. But at this point not even that might be enough to make them stay, Tony doesn’t fucking know. He’s sure having a hard time imagining this could possibly result in anything other than him having to make his plans without counting them in.

He’d rather be petty than be discarded.

“Ya know.” Rocket pats his knees, as if he’s dusting off his clothes casually, before standing up on the table so he an Tony can be eye to eye, and to call the look on his face predatory it’s almost too much irony for even Tony to bear. “We keep hearing about this big fight you all had and that’s all fine and good, whatever, it seems like you’ve got your issues, who doesn’t, am I right? But it seems to me, and you know I’m right, that this is a little more important than whatever has left you guys so angry with each other! Right? Tell me I’m not wrong here.”

Nebula doesn’t. Neither does Tony.

“We’re not tryin’ to corner you.” He placates, but then, he pauses. “Or hell, I guess we are. But it’s for a good reason. We want our family back as much as you want your son. So you gotta help us here, metal guy.”

“I know.” Tony huffs. “You’re right. It’s just—"

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to bridge the gap, he doesn’t have the energy to – he has no capacity to forgive them, not right now, maybe not ever, and he feels so bad about it. He’ll be an idiot if he grants them forgiveness, because forgiveness, with them, comes in form of passiveness, of retreating and bending to their will and their plans, and Tony has no time for that, no time at all, no trust that this won’t lead him straight to his death; But then again, if this enough to send them away again, he’s also the idiot, and if he dies while trying to get that Gauntlet back and nothing gets fixed, the entire world suffers. The entire universe.

Either way he’s a fool. Either way, he’s the asshole.

And even so, he aches, he wishes, he dreams of fixing it. He never learns. He has no strength to bow and ask for forgiveness for his behavior towards them, for being aggressive and combative, but also, he can’t stop wishing they would come to him first and initiate the apologies. Is that something bad to think about, to wish for? Like he’s some kind of villain who is victimizing himself, or maybe he’s an arrogant jerk, demanding reparation without being willing to do any of his own? He doesn’t know. Like he said – it’s complicated. It’s all complicated because his rage and his nostalgia seem perfectly content in coexisting in the corners of his brain and in the cracks in his heart, unaware, or uncaring, that their mere presence is war at Tony’s soul. How can he be sure if his willingness to still work with the team is a display of maturity or just a bad idea, misguided by insistence and naïve hope? How can know if his refusal is pure stubbornness or the right choice, or even a choice he could possibly say it was founded on logic and fairness, and nothing else?

Peter deserves better than this.

Peter – the kid is gone, and here Tony is, agonizing over his feelings; he deserves better. Better than someone like Tony, who couldn’t even protect him in the first place, like he said he would. Tony knows, somewhere deep inside his mind, that Peter’s disappearance in particular is not his fault, factually; the… Snap, if he can call it that, was random. He has seen FRIDAY’s estimates and calculations – there is no refined moral or reason at play to choose who got caught in Thanos’ game, they just… did.

But that’s a very, very small part of his brain talking. The rest of him, his mind, his bones, his heart, his everything – it all makes him very, very aware of all the ways Tony failed to protect that kid, whether they are true or not, and scorches him like physical pain—

Because it’s all on him. He lost his kid.

It’s all on him.

“He wasn’t mine.” Tony says, to the room at large, mostly because he feels the need to hear the words said out loud, because maybe they’ll sink in if he hears them coming from somewhere that’s not the deep crevices of his head, even if they do resonate in his voice.

“What?” Rocket asks, baffled, and Tony’s shoulders move in a motion that’s supposed to be a shrug, but it stutters, and it falters, as if he’s trembling.

“He’s not my son. Not actually.”

Both Rocket and Nebula look at him with terribly confused looks in their faces. “What do you mean?”

“I mean – I’m not his father, I didn’t…” Tony stutters, overwhelmed and a little embarrassed, the words getting caught in his throat so thickly he has no hope of saying anything that makes any remote sense. “He’s not really mine, I just…”

I just loved him like he was?

I just cared for him more than I ever cared for myself?

I swore to protect him with my life, and I failed?

I would have done anything to keep him safe?

None of these really explain the enormity of his feelings on it, they never could.

So he stops. He stops, and looks away, and he feels small and defeated, because how else can he feel after having lost something so important? How can he express his painfully acute awareness that he had no right to impose himself on Peter’s life like he did, but he did it anyways, or how Peter shouldn’t have admired him, but he had, and Tony had never felt so proud, of anyone or anything in this world, as he had when he saw the kid after the Vulture had been captured, when Tony finally understood just how deep and how complete Peter’s genuine goodness and strength was? How can he explain, in simple words at least, how the act of simply looking at Peter inspired in him the most overwhelming urge to… be better, to break the cycle, to be a better father.

Tony hadn’t even been a father at all.

“Look, pal, I’m not one to talk about family and stuff like that, I don’t exactly have any memories of what it was like before all… this.” Rocket says, cryptically, gesturing to all of himself with a vague hand motion, as if to indicate his very existence. “And even after, you’d never hear me call those morons family, at least not to their faces—"

He chokes on air, like he’s swallowed something on accident, and Tony isn’t sure if the way he sounds it’s meant to indicate he’s about to retch or about to cry, and for a second, Tony almost panics he’s having some sort of fit – but then he blurts out something that Tony isn’t expecting at all, “But I lost a kid too, ya’ know?”

A heavy, dark feeling falls upon them, a too painful beat of silence.

Tony feels like he can’t breathe.

“He was a teenager, almost.” Rocket says, almost contemplatively, his face cats down and his eyes sad, his tiny hands twitching and curling into fists in a nervous motion, his tail drooping in a pitiful stance, undeniable evidence of his grief. “It’s hard to explain, he wasn’t supposed to be young, but some stuff happened and ya’ know, you gotta adapt to whatever weird thing happens to ya’, and what happened was that he got young again, so we had to take care of ‘im. Got him a pot an everything.”

“A… pot?” Tony asks, almost inaudibly, because forcing even the smallest words out of his mouth and into the air feel like disrupting this moment too harshly, a cruelty Tony doesn’t have in his heart to do.

“He’s talking about the tree.” Nebula clarifies, just as lowly.

“His name is Groot.” Rocket snaps, but with far too little bite to sting. “He was a… well, he was a Groot. They’re like these… big, sentient trees, that only speak the same sentence over and over again, and you kinda have to guess what they’re tryin’ to say at first, it’s a pain in the ass. But he was my friend. My only friend, for a really long time. And when he got turned into a little twig, I had to take care of ‘im.”

It doesn’t really make sense to Tony, but it doesn’t have to.

Rocket’s pain, the way it sounds in the rasp of his voice, the… weird, innocent feeling his animal face gives when contorted into sadness, but the clear awareness in his eyes and the force it takes him to even get the words past his sharp teeth; it’s all so recognizable, so human, Tony doesn’t really need to know what he’s talking about to know what he’s talking about.

“When he disappeared—” Rocket sniffs, and Tony doesn’t know if he’s crying or not, if his fur would conceal the tears so easily that he wouldn’t be able to tell. “We were in the woods, and he just… He started to turn into dust right in front of me, and he called me dad, and I just… I didn’t know what to do. We tried to bring him back, got a new pot, took a piece of Thor’s axe, but it wasn’t enough.”

He sobs. Sudden and broken and – a gleam, a tear, right there, trickling down his fur, and Tony’s own eyes burn and water out of nowhere, the emotion echoing inside his own body in perfect, deafening acoustics, so encompassing he almost doesn’t comprehend where it all came from. Rocket immediately tries to reign himself in, ashamed of his reaction, turning his face and wiping his fur frantically as if he could be quick enough to hide the damage that has already been done; And though it’s useless, they all pretend it works, because none of them know how to react to such an open display of vulnerability, none of them confident enough to comfort each other in any way other than their mere presence or an awkward pat on the back.

But they will stand there, in silence, if that’s all they can do. Even if it’s not much, it’s something they can do, so they do it. Nebula won’t even dare to reciprocate the touch to her arm, because of the way Rocket’s shoulders shake as he tries to hold back his sobs, but she stays close. She watches him, as if her vigil could bring him comfort, and she maybe even hopes that it does.

So they stand, and they comfort. In the small ways they can.

“So if you think he was your son…” Rocket shrugs, pretending he doesn’t sniff loudly and that his eyes aren’t shiny with tears. “He was your son. And that’s all there is to it. If you’re planning to get that Gauntlet back just to bring him home – that sounds like something a father should do to me.”

Tony doesn’t know what to do with this amount of trust. Just like he didn’t when Thor approached him, in this same workshop, much like they are now, and told him the Stones might have left a message for him to find; Tony has no reason to believe that he knows any more than all the others, but they all seem to be relying on him, on his will and motivation, and God knows that is shaky and a little unsure even at the best of days.

But they believe in him. At least, these two – and Thor, so it seems – do.

Enough to entrust him with these stories, with these… unfiltered emotions, so conflicted and raw, sore from being pulled so thin, so harshly, so unforgiving.

(Why?)

“That’s why we’re gonna follow you into this fight, and that’s why they will too.” Rocket says, after a breath to recompose himself, sounding much more confident. “We’re all in this for something that’s worth it, ya’ know?”

What does he do with this? With their… trust?

He’s not strong enough to deny to himself that he desperately wants it, maybe even needs it, but does he deserve it? He can’t help but doubt it. Does he deserve it? From these two, who barely know him, or from Thor, who has more forgiveness and honor in him that Tony could ever be worthy of? And what for – because they assumed, much like he had assumed so many things about them, that Tony’s motivation is… what?

He does want to bring Peter back.

Maybe that’s the only thing he truly wants now. The only thing that keeps him going. He could make an argument that’s not just that – he’d do it for Pepper, he’d come back for her so they can try again once it’s all over, because he loves her and he does want to marry her, even with all their flaws; or maybe he can say he’ll do it just because it’s the right thing to do, because no one deserved to fall victim to the workings of a guy like Thanos, and as a hero, it is his duty, his mission, to right the wrongs and bring everyone back just because it’s the right thing to do.

But that’s a lie.

(It’s not—)

It is, it’s a lie, because Tony is selfish and he never denied it, and he can’t deny the only thing keeping him going now is the memory of Peter Parker dying in his arms, because it is. And it’s guilt and sorrow and affection and grief and everything else, all mixed together into a hurricane of emotions that wrecks chaos in his body, and he can’t sit here and act like he’s noble when the only thing keeping him upright is something so frail, so excruciatingly… so – so human. So fallible and so personal.

It’s selfish, he’s selfish. He just – he just wants his kid back.

Tony treated Peter terribly at first. He’s aware – he’s ashamed of it. He could say he didn’t know better because he sure didn’t have the best role models, but since when is he allowed to accept poor excuses for himself? He doesn’t, not ever. He simply has to live with the knowledge that he screwed up, more than once, but dammit, he did try to fix it. He didn’t use to think he would ever be able to have children, not because of physical inability but… because of everything else. Bad examples, all sort of issues and baggage, never enough willingness to compromise his objectives in favor of others’ comfort, tendencies into getting himself into more and more dangerous situations every time; Tony knew that despite his frankly embarrassing desire to have a domestic life, to have a freaking farm with a white picket fence and everything, he’s not the best person for the job. He’s just not.

But Tony had always loved children so much. They’re great, they’re the future, and Tony is an idealistic fool through and through, and he dreamed. So many times.

And he gets attached. He got attached, to Peter. How could he not. The kid is – he was so great, so full of ideas and talent, and so strong-willed and just… good, how could Tony not develop the deepest kind of admiration for him?

But Tony hadn’t treated him right. He got the kid into messes he didn’t need to be in, just because Tony couldn’t leave him alone, and he had been aching for an excuse to get in contact with Spiderman long before Leipzig, but he took the opportunity as soon as he could, because he was selfish. He genuinely didn’t think it would turn into a fight, he thought it would be safe enough, even more so if he gave the kid an upgraded suit, but still – he should have known. He should have at least thought twice before involving a fifteen-year-old in a situation that could turn into a fight with the goddamned Avengers. No matter how much the kid said he had fun. Tony is the adult, he’s the one who should have known better.

Tony has always been so bad at refraining himself from that first impulse of selfishness.

(And—)

And it’s not just Peter, is it?! It’s not.

Because Harley won’t pick up the phone.

He—

Dammit.

FRIDAY has called his number on the 13-K seven times now, he doesn’t pick up the phone.

But he would, in this situation. He would. Tony knows the kid is allergic to feelings, but he would.

Tony tried to stay away. From both of them. It worked with Harley, more or less. He gave the kid a workshop, he even gave him a new watch for his baby sister – and a phone, an email that could reach Tony’s personal server directly, everything to make sure that he would never have any troubles getting in contact directly with Tony in case he needed it.

(Because we’re connected.)

And they did talk. Sometimes. But Tony can be so overbearing, he knows it, he said that it’s difficult sometimes for him to reign himself in and have limits on knowing when to stop imposing himself on people – and he screwed that up with Harley, who became a teenager like all teenagers, the kind that hates having an adult constantly nagging at them about the details of their lives. What, he said once, and Tony can still remember his voice perfectly, the slight tilt of sarcasm, highlighted by the now deeper tone of his puberty, Are you my dad now, old man?

Tony hadn’t known how to react to that. One, because old man is exactly what he used to call Howard when he was being a contrary little shit when he was a teenager, and the coincidence is just… too much for Tony to handle, even now. But two, because the joke, even if it’s just that, a joke, to hear the smallest suggestion of the exact thing Tony feels but never dared to speak out loud, the protectiveness he had been harboring and growing slowly through years of distant vigil over that kid he met completely on accident in Tennessee, was more than enough to make him halt where he stood, and reconsider every single interaction they had ever since they met, made him dread that he truly might have taken it too far with his constant need to take people under his wing.

A kid that he wouldn’t dare to call his own out loud, but in the most guarded depths of his heart—

So… the protocol. It helped. It reminded Tony to keep himself in check, to look at his actions logically, as if they were plans to be implemented. Even affection can be too much, he knows that very well, so maybe he should take the time to think before forcing himself into people’s personal space just because he’s so desperate to show them he cares.

And it was useful for other people too – after the disastrous incident with the giant bunny, Tony created protocols for Pepper. 1-R is just one of many, and ironically, the only one Tony hoped to never, ever need to use. And all the things he planned for the wedding – maybe he’ll have to… delete those. Or maybe set them aside for a while. Maybe. He doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know how to stop hoping, honestly.

He has protocols for Rhodey and War Machine both, different parameters for different occasions, and it would be shocking how many of them were implemented after his accident if Tony didn’t think it is completely justified. He even has protocols for Happy.  Protocols for SI, for the armor, for everything.

And for the kids.

17-A for Peter Parker.

13-K for Harley Keener.

There are more. The entire A section was Avengers Business, and Peter’s armor had been one of many in Tony’s list; But there’s the personal line too, the one with Peter’s internship, his college aid, and so much more. Tony knows all their names by heart. Again, overbearing, maybe, but that’s why he had the protocol. So he won’t do it without thinking about it. He wrote it down, and that has to be enough until it’s necessary to use them, if, that is, it ever will.

13-K had been Tony’s and Harley’s compromise. Their emergency plan. Since Harley wouldn’t accept his own AI, despite Tony’s insistence – assuming, maybe correctly, that Tony might be inclined to exaggerate and invade the systems in case he panicked for whatever reason—, but Tony also refused to be deterred by a teenager’s refusal to answer to his calls and emails out of pure laziness and spite, they had to settle on something. In the end, an alarm that sets off in Harley’s workshop, warning him to contact Tony immediately seemed like a good enough middle ground. If Tony worries, and Harley replies, no need to activate any other protocols that require more extreme measures, like go rescue the kid right now or anything like that.

If he doesn’t—

Fuck.

If he doesn’t answer, something is wrong.

And Tony can’t even check. He can’t fly to Tennessee. Not now. He has no cameras there, no AI, no nothing, he can’t even guess if Harley is still alive or not. He hasn’t seen the kid in a few years now, and it’s agonizing, because the dark voices in his brain keep insisting that now he never will again. Neither him nor Parker.

Tony couldn’t get it right with either of them. Either he’s suffocating and he needs to pull back, making himself useless if they’re in any real danger, or he steps back too soon and too far and hurts their feelings, pushes them too hard to prove themselves, drags them into danger unwillingly and unknowingly.

Can he really claim any kind of right to the fierce protectiveness he feels over these kids? With how clearly he struggled to give them what they needed?

Truth is, the answer doesn’t really matter. Not to him.

But would it matter for the others? Maybe. Who knows. Maybe they’d judge him for some of his choices. Probably. But—

Truth is: he can’t stop. Not until they’re back, not until they’re safe. Nothing else matters. And Tony might be the wrong person, not fitting for the role, not a father, but logic has no power over this animal part of him, no doubt is strong enough to weaken his resolve to lay down his life if it means that he will give them the chance to continue theirs. He may have wronged, he may have made things harder, both on them and on himself, but he’s a mechanic, he’s the mechanic, and he will build anything that allows him to bring them back. Even a Gauntlet. Anything.

And if Rocket thinks that’s enough, yes. Then it is enough.

It is enough for him.

“I want to save them.” Tony says, and it aches like he’s scraping the barrel depths of himself, leaving no place unreached, and even with words so simple, it comes off his mouth like a cry of war. “I just have to figure out how.

He’ll do this for them. He will do anything for them. For Rocket too, and his kid, and Nebula, for her sister. For all of them, for the people they’ve lost and now don’t know how to live without, because family—

Family will always be a sore subject for Tony. Always. Too many… Just too much, broken promises and discarded dreams, betrayals and abandonment, and even when something manages to fit, it is doomed in other ways; to somehow fracture and hurt, never untainted.

But he keeps putting the pieces back together. Over and over again, even if they’re not as seamless, even if they’re not as shiny as they used to be. But he keeps doing it. Because he would rather have them, cuts in his hands, sleepless nights, and all that comes with it, than not having them at all.

These two don’t know how to do that, so maybe Tony can help them. Maybe they can all help each other. And maybe the three of them, a bunch of emotionally repressed old souls who came together by sheer coincidence and luck, maybe they can share the burden on the way. Isn’t that what they’re doing here? Isn’t that why Nebula holds his gaze and dares to raise her head higher, why Rocket straightens his spine and squares his shoulders, despite having just bared themselves to each other despite discomfort or fear? So they can all understand, so they can all exist in this same tiny pocket of time where they all came from so far away to be together for one single goal?

As bad as they might’ve been to their families once, no matter how they wronged them – they all are willing to do anything for another chance.

“We’re gonna find out how.” Tony tells them, for their benefit and his own, a promise spoken into the universe itself.

Both Nebula and Rocket seem deeply, profoundly satisfied by Tony’s response, his declaration, the sheer determination he pushes into his words like he’s searing them into his own skin like a mark.

“I’m countin’ on it. They said you’re a genius.” Rocket muses, and Tony is almost glad to hear the small note of humor in his voice, as weak as it is, because it’s better than hurt, better than tears, better. “To be honest, that usually wouldn’t impress me much, because you could say I’m a genius myself – but I’m… all out of options here.”

“I didn’t think you would admit that.” Nebula mutters, and Tony realizes, with a small, confused smile, that it’s meant to be a joke, as unpracticed and tentative as it may be, only the look in her face giving away the game, because her voice is a flat and unamused as always, the perfect dry tone for her. “Maybe I should tell your stupid friends when they come back.”

“Shut up, I’m allowed to admit that, aren’t we sharin’ our feelings here? You said you wouldn’t make me do this by myself!” Rocket exclaims, accusatory.

“I lied.” Nebula lies.

Rocket makes a perplexing, stuttering noise, as if he’s choking on his embarrassment, and tries to kick Nebula with his short little legs just out of spite; and being so short, misses terribly, and Nebula barely has to take a step back to be out of his range of motion.

“Okay, alright, ignoring her since she’s decided to be a dick. Are you?” Rocket jabs, and Tony is so distracted by watching their childish squabble he almost misses the turn in the conversation as they both shift their focus back to him. “A genius? Can you get us out of this?”

Tony finds himself shocked by the question, by the bluntness and complete honesty of it, the eagerness he finds in both Rocket’s and Nebula’s eyes, and for a second, he thinks.

Can you get us out of this?

He doesn’t know. In all honesty, he doesn’t know – but more and more, he refuses to believe he can’t. Maybe because they seem to think he’ll be able to, maybe because for the first time doubt cannot slow him down fast enough for him to question himself, maybe—

(Tony.)

(There was no other way.)

It doesn’t matter. He will. He will get them out of this. Hopefully, not alone – God, not alone – but he will, and there is no other way. There isn’t.

“Boss.” FRIDAY suddenly says, snapping him out of his trance, making them all jerk where they stand, startled. “We’ve got incoming.”

The door opens behind them.

They turn, surprised, the small bubble of safety and familiarity they fortuitously built around themselves ripping apart suddenly, and it feels like a slap in the face to see that it’s Barton, face pinched into a pained expression, pale and sickly, followed close by all the others, Rogers, Romanov, all of them, even Rhodey. Rhodey, the only face he has the slightest hope to accurately read amidst this chaos, whose features are clouded in concern, but not raging, angry concern – just concern, and Tony wishes he wasn’t so well acquainted with the expression to know the difference.

(It was going so well.)

(Why did you have to ruin it.)

But Barton, front-heading and looking like he would rather be literally anywhere else than here; For a moment, the unknown is so absolute and encompassing that Tony almost shuts down entirely, their stance and faces so ambiguously set that he can’t guess if they’re here to start a fight or attempt to end one, or maybe if they’re here for something else entirely, and he can’t even imagine what.

The silence falls upon them with the weight of the entire world. The others watch them both, their gazes flickering between Barton and Tony like a tennis match, all their breaths held. The almost-warmth that had existed before their arrival, it’s gone, replaced by the chill Tony had been so desperately trying to ignore, the one that robbed him of sleep at night, the one that froze tears while they streamed down his cheeks, the one he still feels knocking at the windows demanding to be let in, to consume, biting at his bones.

“Hey.” Barton says, like someone is pulling his teeth out with a damned plier.

Tony doesn’t say a word.

“I just…” Barton exhales, forcefully, and tries again, slower. “I think we need to talk. You and me.”

“Is that what we’re gonna do?” Tony needles, and fuck, he shouldn’t, it’s not helpful to be this irritable and stubborn, but the urge is stronger than him. Something about the way the others circle them like they’re a spectacle in a circus, it puts Tony incredibly on edge.

As expected, it makes Barton bristle like an angry cat. It’s visible how it pains him to be restrained. “I would like to, yeah. Can we—?”

“I think we’re just fine right here.” Tony decides.  

Barton’s mouth contorts into a very ugly, very angry expression, but he wipes it away quickly, with years-long honed practice. It makes Tony feel a little too annoyed.

“Alright. Okay then.” He says, in careful pauses. “Listen, Tony, I wanted – Yesterday, that was shitty, and it didn’t need to happen. We both got way over our heads, and we both said some things we didn’t mean, but we don’t got time to be fighting like kids over a damn toy, so… I guess I – We – No hard feelings, alright? Can we agree on that? Let’s just get this over with, we find the bastard and we do our job, no need for us to fight each other like we’re the enemy. Not when the guy who’s really responsible for this is still out there.”

Tony waits. They all do, in complete silence.

“Is that it?”

Damn his fucking mouth, Jesus Christ.

“Stark—”

“Did they put you up to this? You didn’t have to. Not like any of this will actually help—"

“Look, man, I don’t know what the fuck you want me to say, alright?” There it is, the anger. Simmering just below the surface, like a crocodile, floating under the water, ready to snap its jaws around anything that dares to come too close. And Tony sticks his hand right into it, right into the teeth. “You yelled at us, so yeah, I yelled back. Don’t act like you weren’t accusing us of something, Tony, you know you were!”

(No hard feelings, yeah, right.)

“Like you accused me of leaving civilians to death because I want to?” Tony snaps back, voice rising, aggravation flaring so quickly it’s like gasoline to flame. “Like you didn’t call me a villain and accused me of trying to kill the team?”

Many of the others standing behind Barton flinch, seemingly poised to intervene, but reluctant to do so. They step to the sides, spreading themselves wider so they can watch the exchange from a better angle – so they can act from a better angle, in case it’s necessary, the precaution as unconscious and instinctual as it is their posture, ready to shove themselves between Tony and Barton and take a punch for it, if it means not letting them punch each other.

“This is not what we’re here for.” Rogers says, almost like a warning.

“Why can’t you two stop this. This is bullshit.” Romanov growls, a demand and a plea all at once, standing close enough to Barton that she will be the first to grab his arm if he moves; And they both completely ignore her, to her immense displeasure.

“You started it!” Barton accuses Tony, childishly, but the force of his fury shows none of a child’s inoffensive tantrum. He’s all storm and rage, a man hardened by war. His voice is old, bitter venom. “Are you really gonna deny that?!”

“Was I lying?” Tony jabs back. “Did you, or did you not, launch yourself into a battle with no plan and no ways of communicating with your team, and put yourself and all of us in danger doing so?!”

“It was – I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear?” Barton throws his hands up, agitated. “I’m sorry, alright, Tony? I’m sorry we jumped too fast, I’m sorry we didn’t listen to you and you got upset, and it hurt your feelings.”

Tony’s mouth snaps shut, and to be honest, it does. It does hurt his fucking feelings, alright? Barton is mocking him, not just because of DC, but because of everything, and Tony can tell by the mere tone of his voice, the sneer in his face; He’s making fun of every single time Tony bared his most anxious thoughts and his biggest worries to them, and reminding him that just like now, they brushed him off like it didn’t matter at all.

It’s no surprise Barton is the first one to break and to attack Tony. They never were in the same page, not once, not since Ultron.

Ultron, who Tony is gonna have to somewhat revive to fix this mess, if Thor is to be believed.

Ultron, who might, in the end, be their salvation, as Tony said he should have been.

He’s done.

He’s done with this bullshit.

“You know what?” Tony smiles, the skin pulling tight with the fakeness of it, his exhale mocking and his frown exaggerated, brows raising into a sneeringly arrogant expression. “You’re right. You did jump too fast. We all did, apparently. Too fast into thinking we could ever make this work in any way even resembling a normal team. Isn’t that right – after all, you clearly don’t give a rat’s ass about my feelings enough to even consider my point, so why don’t we spare everyone of any more headaches from hearing us fight, hm? You can take your apologies right out of my workshop, Barton. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”

And here it is, the final straw. He’s had enough, he’s giving them the chance to leave, right now, right before his eyes, and he will shove down the part of him that screams that he’s making a mistake as far as he can if it means he’ll get the confirmation of what he’s suspected all this time. Rage rearranges his priorities, muddling them into unrecognizable nonsense, and suddenly, it feels far more important to do this, to prove all of their ridiculous, naïve hopes wrong, even if it hurts him too, because he can’t stand another second of this insecurity, of this guessing and doubting and wishful thinking.

He turns around, and for a split second, Tony’s heart lurches painfully with anticipation—

(I knew it.)

(I knew it.)

But Barton doesn’t leave.

“God, fuck, Stark!” He yells, pressing his hands into his eyes, swaying precariously from side to side, as a child trying to console himself desperately. “I don’t want to fight you! I’m so tired of this! Why can’t we – Why are we always fighting, man?!”

(He—)

“Are you seriously asking me that? After what you just said?” Tony snarls.

“I—” Barton groans, turning back around, to look at Tony with a wide, frenzied gaze. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I don’t mean that we don’t trust you—”

“Even though you clearly don’t—”

“Can you just shut up and let me speak—!”

No.” Tony barks, with all the strength in his lungs. “I can’t! Why?! Because this is the reason why we’re here in the first place! You wanna talk about my hurt feelings like it’s a problem, but truth is that you are one of the most resentful people in this team, and whether you admit it or not, you can’t get over the fact that I created Ultron and you never looked at me the same after that! Isn’t that right?”

Barton’s expression doesn’t change, but something about him does. It’s not a wince, not a flinch – but his whole body, something happens to it that Tony can see, can see the way the words hit him just like Barton’s accusations in the lounge hit Tony, in a way that hurts, and Tony knows it hurts because truth is always the thing that hurts most.

“You don’t get to talk about my feelings, Barton.” Tony commands. “I screwed up with Ultron but I did what I could to fix it. And I never denied it that I screwed up. I fixed the Compound, we created Vision, I left the team. I didn’t say a word when Wanda joined. And when you decided it was a good idea leaving your family to stick your nose into a discussion you had no part of, after you broke out of jail, my entire legal team worked themselves day and night trying to figure out a way to safely bring you and Lang back home, to your families, and guess what – I didn’t hear a single word from you since you were placed in house arrest. Not a single one. Because you blamed me for everything, even if I wasn’t the one to call you, and I wasn’t the one to arrest you. But you pinned it all on me.”

And Tony hates that he’s upset about it. He hates it, because why the fuck should he care about what Barton thinks?

But he does.

He can’t believe it, but he does.

And it hurts his fucking feelings.

“You wanna talk to me about hurt feelings, maybe you should take a step back and take a good look at yourself, before you throw any more accusations. Do you want me to apologize for the Raft? Is that what you want?” Tony opens his arms, like he’s exposing himself for a gunshot, and it’s exactly how it feels. “I am sorry. I should have known Ross was going to take the chance to do something bad to you, but I didn’t. Rhodey was in the hospital, Vision wouldn’t talk to me, Romanov and I had a fight, you can ask her—”

Natasha turns her face away, mouth twitching like she’s biting the inside of her cheek, eyes trailed on the ceiling in something that looks too much like an effort not to cry.

“And I just had too much to deal with, alright? So I’m sorry I didn’t realize what was happening, and I’m sorry I didn’t act sooner. But I am not sorry I signed it, and if that’s enough for you to hate me, then you can leave right now, because I’m not apologizing for it. And if the Accords are enough reason to make you quit, that’s on you, because I could sit here and argue all day about how we all fucked up, not just me, you too, how we all failed to make this team a team – but I won’t, because DC has nothing to do with this. It has nothing to do with the Accords, but it has everything to do with us and how spectacularly we failed to protect the people we swore we would. I’m not trying to replace Rogers or become an evil leader or whatever you convinced yourself I am. I’m trying – I’m… I’m trying to get us working on the same page, because if we’re not, we might die in the process, and I will not die before I get the people I care about back, you understand?”

Tony has to physically distance himself from the argument to avoid exploding into something far more bitter and biting than what he’s already turning into, and he turns his head to the side almost like he’s trying to break the hold of someone who has his face trapped in their hands, as if some unknown entity is responsible for the way he’d been watching Barton slowly break down in front of him like it’d been a show. Seeing Rocket and Nebula behind him, at the periphery of his gaze, is somehow even worse; Because here he is, exposing the flaws and wires of the foundation of this team they are so willing to place their bets on, ripping them open to showcase the soft, fragile insides that are so easy to hurt, mere moments after he tried so hard to give them hope.

Dammit.

(Why did you have to ruin it.)

Tony turns his gaze to Rhodey, a little betrayed by his silence, and says, maybe too accusing:

“You didn’t have to do this.”

Because who else would have brought Barton here? Who else but his best friend, who refuses to accept that he can’t fix all of Tony’s problems, especially not the problems Tony creates for himself?

Rhodey’s expression tightens. “I didn’t.”, he says.

“This is not about the Accords.”

Tony whips his head back in Barton’s direction, like a hound attracted by the sound of its prey.

“I know that. Just—” Barton mutters to himself, defeated, before making a sound so guttural and wounded that calling it a frustrated groan is not enough. “God, we’re so fucked, aren’t we?”

He laughs, a wry sound, no amusement or joy in it; meek and miserable, like all the rest of him, all the rest of them, curling in agony around itself, like it’s preparing to die.

For a small, fearful moment, Tony finds himself almost afraid.

This is not a Barton he recognizes.

But then again—

How would he know?

“I’m sorry. It’s not – You’re right.” Barton heaves, surprising the hell out of Tony, whose eyebrows shoot up his forehead so quickly it’s almost like they have a life of their own. “I swear I don’t want to fight, I promise – It’s just… The last few years, they’ve been… so crap.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“I know you do.” Barton acknowledges, only marginally annoyed. “I know you know. I’m just… I’m being a dick. It’s what I do, I’m a dick. Isn’t that the problem? We’re both dicks and we don’t know how to play nice, what a good fucking team, the mighty Avengers.”

He wipes the sweat on his forehead roughly, pulling at the skin with far more force than necessary, his hand trembling slightly from what Tony can see, even from far away. If he hadn’t known better, Tony would almost say he looks like he’s going through some sort of withdrawal, his body shivering from the need of a hit of whatever it decided it can’t live without, but no; This is stress, this is adrenaline pumping him full of a rush he has no outlet for, maybe even some rage, boiling inside him like a cauldron, spilling and overflowing with agitation burning hot, but never hot enough to dissipate the cold.

“Barton—"

“I’m – I’m just a SHIELD Agent, Tony. I was never supposed to be an Avenger. You think I want this? I was caught on this by accident, I wasn’t even part of PEGASUS, I was supposed to be watching over Selvig while he searched on the Tesseract. Otherwise, I’d be with Coulson on his new division. I didn’t even get the chance to be debriefed before Thor’s hammer was found in New Mexico and I was moved to a new section. I wasn’t meant to be a part of the team.”

Tony had never thought about Barton’s status as an Avenger, or either of their statuses, if he’s being honest. He never thought it was something he should question, and if it was, he would probably be the last one to make such inquiries, considering that he himself denied the position when Fury first offered him the job. Well, offered Iron Man the job. The file Coulson had given him the night he barged into Tony and Pepper’s date night was carefully curated and meticulously crafted, only giving enough information that it would not be suspicious, informing him of only the essentials: Rogers, Thor, Bruce, and the Tesseract. Nothing else. Not even Natasha.

So he suddenly realizes – Barton is telling the truth. Neither him nor Natasha were meant to be a part of this initiative, and the only reason why they were included so effortlessly into it was by pure coincidence, as they both had been available and ready to fight when Loki ended up bringing his army down upon New York. There were plenty of other SHIELD agents roaming around and helping civilians evacuate the area, but Natasha and Clint had been in the thick of it with the four of them, and as soon as they were assumed to be a part of the so-called Avengers, no one bothered to correct them. Not because they’re not skilled enough to be on the team, because they are, but simply because… it wasn’t planned.

But that’s okay for Natasha. It’s always been okay for Natasha.

But Barton, hiding a wife and kids on a farm in the middle of nowhere, suddenly roped into this superhero team—

“And I think it shows.” Barton scoffs, but his derision seems directed all towards himself. “Hell, I spent more time off the team than in it, and it’s not exactly a coincidence. I could have told you guys about Laura and the kids, but I didn’t, and I could have moved back into the fight after Ultron was taken down and moved into the Compound with the rest of you. God knows Wanda tried to convince me to stay. Nat didn’t, but I also know you wouldn’t have minded.”

Natasha tilts her head to the side, her eyes soft, a little sad. “I would never make you choose between us and your family.”

“But isn’t that the thing? That this should have been kinda like family?” Barton replies. “Nat, I know you – I know how important this is for you. And for Cap. But it’s never been that important to me.

And there is the truth. There it fucking is.

It’s never been that important for Clint, this team. And Tony knew, of course he knew, he has no business feeling even the slightest bit of disappointment in finally hearing it out loud, especially not after this big, crying moment he shared with Nebula and Rocket, because he understands it. The guy has a family, an actual family, who is Tony to say he should have prioritized the team instead of them? He shouldn’t have, ever. And Tony would never blame him for it, not for this.

But that’s where it all falls apart. That’s where the rage comes in – because Barton, at a certain point, did decide to turn his back on his family. For the goddamned Accords. No – for Rogers, because Rogers told him to, and Barton simply obeyed without a single thought.

This is why he’s angry. Who cares about the Accords now, when the world is caving in on itself, when they are all straining under the same threat? No one. Not even Tony. This is not what this is about.

But the implications of it, the reason why Barton was so quick to jump to conclusions and trust Rogers instead of Tony, and the reasons why he kept being angry at Tony despite everything that happened after Tony told him the Raft was not his fault, after the documents were revised and Barton signed them, after he came home to his children with the help of SI’s legal team – this is what Tony cares about. Because this is what hurts his damned feelings.

Barton will go as far as to betray the trust of his family for his mission. That’s the kind of agent he is.

But he’ll do it for Rogers. For Natasha, for Wilson, for Maximoff. For Maximoff of all people.

But he will not spare a single ounce of forgiveness for Tony.

“I wasn’t gonna be on the team for long. I didn’t mean to come back. I just…” He shrugs, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I made a bad call. When I heard about the Accords, and that Ross was the one proposing them, I just got into my head that they weren’t good. I saw what happened during the hunt for Banner from inside SHIELD’s sources, I knew what kind of stuff Ross could get up to. He was a piece of shit! I couldn’t even believe you’d be on his side, both of you, it just didn’t make any sense!” He gestures wildly between Tony and Natasha, face contorted in absolute confusion, like the very thought of it causes him pain somehow.

“We were doing what we had to do.” Tony stresses, including Natasha into his defense without a second thought, despite her very obvious betrayal of his trust to help Rogers and Barnes escape for Siberia by attacking T’Challa.

“I know that now.” Barton sneers impatiently. “You think I spent all that time on the run without taking a single second to think about what I had done? I did my time, Tony, in or out of the Raft, and I don’t need you to keep telling me I screwed up because I know. My wife almost divorced me. My kid refused to see me for almost a week, and then after he wouldn’t talk to me anyway. Not to mention the months on the run, with countries I once helped save hunting me down, and all of that for a document I didn’t read. I realized pretty fast I chose wrong, alright? Not because the Accords were good or bad, but just because I made a choice I had nothing to do with just because I got so used to go against some things I didn’t even stop to think why you two would be agreeing to it in the first place. And I’ll admit it – that’s on me.”

He lowers his head forcefully, almost chin to chest, and Tony can only watch as he sighs and laughs breathlessly to himself, a one-sided conversation Tony can only interpret by his reactions, his thoughts unknown but clearly unkind inside his brain. It’s sad, how the defeat in his posture is the thing that makes the others relax, as if they are all able to sense that Barton has completely given up any attempt of a fight, and only this allows them to believe they won’t try to kill each other if they aren’t ready to intervene.

Maybe sadder, even, how clearly Tony can recognize it as something he sees in the mirror, what he used to see the first few months after the Accords, what he sees now every time he wakes up, and remembers that the world is sentenced to death.

“I – I just want my family back. That’s all. I hear you, okay? He took your son. But he took my children too. He took my kids, he took my wife – they were everything I had.” Barton mutters, voice cracking. “Say whatever you want about me screwing up and leaving them for the Accords, whatever you want about me being arrested and being a fuck up, I don’t care. I’ve had two years to accept that I did things I shouldn’t have, I made a bad call. Okay? I did. But I came back, for them, and now they’re gone.

He looks up. Straight into Tony’s eyes.

“You should know how that feels.”

Clint Barton, you—

You—

You goddamned asshole.

“You’re an asshole.” Tony tells him, voice strangled with emotion.

“I know.” Barton says, morosely.

“And I can’t have you picking up a fight with me just because you have some… Some issues with me screwing up, not forever. Not for this.” Tony demands, despite the shaky tone of his voice. “Either we both screwed up and you can live with that, or you should leave.”

“I know.” Barton concedes, and takes a deep breath. “I know. You can be an asshole too, Stark, but that’s… I don’t want my issues to get in the way of our chance to make this better.”

“You know I’m right. You know it.” Tony prods, because he has to, because something in him keeps telling him to push the limits, to see if Barton will react aggressively again, if he – if he can trust this truce or whatever the hell this might be, because he really can’t afford to have this taken away from him again. “We can’t take the calls. You know why. And we have to stick together.”

“Yeah. Alright.” Barton agrees, just as calm and determined, as if he’s made his peace with his choice. And what he chose was to stay. “And I am sorry. I really am. And I don’t mean that I don’t care about you guys, we are a team, we are friends… and it’s my bad if I’ve been a shitty teammate and a shitty friend.” He shakes his head, pressing his lips together, the picture of uncertainty. “But – I keep coming back. I keep coming back, even when I know I’m not supposed to, because truth is, I don’t want to lose this either.

Goddamned Clint Barton. God fucking dammit.

“So if you think we can get past this and actually take down the son of a bitch, I think we should try.” Barton tells him, he tells Tony, directly and clearly, eyes unblinking. He knows what he’s doing, and Tony’s trapped under his stare. Trapped under his stupid, ridiculous honesty. “Sorry for all that’s happened. If I refused to listen. We fucked up. But I really wanna make this right. And there’s no one I’d trust most to do this with than all of you.”

Dammit.

(You idiot.)

Tony Stark. Always the goddamned fool. Always too hopeful.

(You’re gonna get hurt again.)

Always, always the fool.

“It’s okay.” Tony whispers, looking away, because he doesn’t know what else to say. It’s not okay. Not exactly. But they have to make do. They have to be okay. They just have to. “Sorry. Too. About DC. And everything.”

Forgiveness, then. Or as far as they can come close to it.

Alright.

Alright.

They can try.

Barton nods, mournfully. “So long as we bring the kids back.”

Tony pauses. “Yeah.”

Of course.

He has to hope it’ll be better.

It’s the only way.

Notes:

This discussion is not over yet. In fact, it's only half of it. Peter Parker, Harley Keener, the Barton kids, Nebula and Gamora, and Groot; This is our list so far.

But we still have a few more to go - and if you've been paying attention, you'll know where this is going next ;) I am very, very excited to take us there, friends! I feel like we are due some sprinkles of controversy, don't you think?

So I hope to see you guys again in the next one! As always, I love and appreciate you all, thank you for reading, commenting, leaving kudos and bookmarking, and if you'd like to support me, please check out these posts here and here, it might be something you're interested in!

Stay safe, everyone, and until next time :)

Chapter 17: Chapter 17

Notes:

While we're on the topic of "children", we might as well talk a little bit about miss Wanda Maximoff.

I did warn you we would come back to this. And we're not done with her, mind you, but it feels like this is the right place to start.

I've made my problems with Wanda no secret, and though I will not call her a villain or anything of the sort, calling her a hero is... difficult for me. I don't think any of you would be surprised about that. But it is interesting, if you think about it, what her presence means in this story and in the other characters' lives, if you dig deep enough. For plot reasons, even. I'd like to show you a theory of mine, so you'll see what I mean. And considering her powers come from an Infinity Stone, it will fit right in with our plot.

Enjoy the chapter, friends, and know we are not done with Wanda yet, but we will get there. Not now, but when the time is right. But it would be impossible not to mention her now - after all, the end of the world waits for no one.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It’s stifling, inside the workshop.

There’s nothing wrong with the filtration system, no. At least, not as far as Tony is aware. He thinks, distantly, that this might actually not be the case anymore, or at least soon; Considering the state of the air quality with all the tons of ashes circling in the atmosphere day and night—

But it’s only that, a distant thought, too far away for him to reach when the immediate thing on his mind is the pure and unbending feeling of discomfort of standing there, with his… team.

They find themselves trapped, nowhere to go. What do they do, now? They cannot leave. They will not leave, at least they say so. Maybe the most sensible thing would be to take a day to think, to process these suffocating emotions in blissfully empty rooms, shielded away from prying eyes and embarrassing exposure, but that is a luxury they no longer have. Where the Compound used to feel thankfully big enough that they could avoid crossing paths entirely if they didn’t want to speak, now, its emptiness is an unstoppable reminder of all the things that are missing where they should be filling up the empty spaces, and they can’t help but seek each other out, aching for companionship, or even the smallest feeling of comfort in another living being’s presence.

(Together.)

Whatever miserable comfort that might be.

“We have to work.” Tony says, just – just to say it. To give all of them and himself a reminder of their mission, even if he knows it’s completely pointless and unnecessary. He hopes the obviousness of it will make it easier to follow through if he hears it out loud, but it doesn’t.

It doesn’t make the air any easier to breathe.

(Tick tock. Tick tock.)

(What will you do?)

“Okay. No responding to calls.” Barton affirms, crossing his arms in a thoughtful, if only slightly defensive stance. “Then what do we do when a call comes in?”

“We’re gonna have to work something out with the agents.” Tony says, but can’t offer any more details or ideas on how to do that. “Carter and Ross?”

“Down the hangar.” Rogers offers, with military efficiency, and for all it’s worth, Tony is unbearably thankful by how easy it is for him to fall back into the priorities, at least this once. “Cameron Klein hasn’t reported anything new on DC. The crowd seems to be gone, but it’s been raining since we left. He says it shows no sign of stopping.”

Tony averts his gaze, concerned, but unable to calculate just how much damage that means for DC – he tries to put numbers together, but his thoughts halt mid-way through like a train slipping off its tracks, a barrel of information that loses itself when it enters the deep fog of his psyche, a destination he cannot reach through the thick haze of what stands in his way.

“The hostages?” He asks at least, because he has to ask.

“No changes.” Rogers informs, just a little softer, a little sad. “So at least they have shelter.”

Okay.

That will have to be enough.

Okay.

“Should we…” Bruce starts, dragging out the words uncertainly. “Should we continue?”

“Alright, this is painful to watch.” Rhodey intervenes, loudly and suddenly, and Tony’s head snaps up fast enough that he catches the others doing the exact same thing, stunned into silence at the face of the forceful authority in his voice. “Here’s how things should go. We’re gonna leave calls and rescue to the agents – I’ll organize a plan of action that’s gonna hold up at least a little longer without us, and we’re gonna focus entirely on that Gauntlet, and on Thanos.”

It’s impossible not to turn and stare at the prototype sitting behind Rocket’s shoulder, not when Rhodey points at it with a deep, indignant rage, his patience straining underneath his words, pulling taut at the edge of his teeth, a sentiment Tony recognizes – but is always so unprepared for, rare as it is, to witness Rhodey’s limits being dangerously approached.

“If that is the fastest way we can get this back to normal, we’re gonna dedicate ourselves 100% into figuring out how to make this work. That means no more fights, no more separating, no more nothing. We got a work to do, and no one else can do it. And we owe to those people out there to get this right, do you understand?”

The others seem shocked by his forcefulness. Maybe that’s why is so easy for them, even Rocket and Nebula, to readily comply, with silent nods and somber stares. Maybe it’s not only Tony that feels some shameful embarrassment, but he’s not the best person to judge – being chided by Rhodey is… It always hits him deep. And Tony gets it. He gets why Rhodey’s angry. He’s angry at himself too, angry at this childish resentment he’s helping create between them, in some ways. If Tony could get over himself and ignore whatever other issues he has with Rogers, Romanov, and Barton, maybe this would all be easier – but again, maybe it wouldn’t. It’s not a one-sided thing, that’s very clear now. Maybe they really couldn’t help it; But they’re on the same page now.

He hopes so, at least.

“Alright, Rhodes. We get it.” Barton nods, almost demurely, a meekness that doesn’t seem to fit him, constricting. “We have a deal, man. We’re all in.”

Good, ‘cause we have to be.” Rhodey exclaims, with barely contained distress, but then – he stops, closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath, his whole body strung tight like a coil, pressure ready to snap, bracers whirring softly as he paces to the side, reaching for the table just so he can touch it, just so his hands will be busy. “I just – It’s bad enough that we have to let people down and not answer to calls. We have to make it worth it.”

(Fuck.)

Rhodey. His dear Rhodey – all military righteousness and just a genuinely good heart, hurting for not being able to fulfill his duty, unable to help, a hopelessness that’s hard for someone like him to handle. It’s not fair.

(It’s never fair.)

“If I had any idea this is how you guys were going to act I wouldn’t have let this happen.” Rhodey tells them under a scrutinizing gaze, his shoulders tight with tension and his mouth pressed into a line. “I thought we would be cool.”

Worst thing is that he truly, genuinely did. Tony can only imagine what this whole thing looks like from Rhodey’s perspective – He only became an active part of the team after their confrontation with Killian, once President Ellis deemed his active participation in the Avengers was something the Air Force should allow more often, but he’d been around long enough to witness them as a group. Before it all went sour, even. He’d seen them be friends.

Most of all, Tony thinks, he’d seen them work together to beat Ultron, who nearly divided them at first. If they could get over that and work together again, why wouldn’t that be the case with the Accords?

Rhodey himself had greeted them back to the Compound with open arms. Shut down Ross’ demand for arrest, put his entire career and freedom on the line, gave them hugs and smiles like it was all a reunion long overdue. And it was. And Rhodey, who is a better man than Tony could ever hope to be, forgave them – for leaving, for picking another side, for his legs. He just had no hard feelings. That’s just how he is, how selfless and… good he can be, that’s just one hundred percent Rhodey. And Tony is not the one who came out of their disagreement with lower-body paralysis, so what can he possibly be so resentful about that he can’t handle ignoring their differences and just working together again? To beat the common enemy once more?

The Accords are bullshit, Tony can almost hear him say. We changed them, Tony. We fixed them. We are fixing them. The fight doesn’t matter anymore. Ross is gone. Barnes is gone. What else can you be angry about?

What are you not telling me?

“We’ll be fine.” Tony assures him, with all the honesty he can, because he wouldn’t dare present Rhodey with anything else, not about this. “Next time, we’ll talk.”

“Is this what you guys call talk?” Rhodey raises an eyebrow at him, sarcastic, but it holds for less than a second before he deflates and sighs. “I guess I should have seen it coming – we did destroy an airport.”

“Not our finest moment.” Tony agrees, with a small, sad grin; And maybe, too daringly, a quick glance to the side, to catch the others’ gaze.

Rogers eyes go to the floor, but right there, at the corner of Natasha’s mouth, there is a tug, the phantom of a smile. Tony’s chest twinges with a weird, nostalgic ache, a longing to see her smile he didn’t even know he had until now.

“Ok, can we just… No more in-fighting. Can we at least agree on that?” Rhodey pleads, with a shrug and a shake of his head.

“We didn’t want to make you guys feel cornered.” Rogers says, sounding surprisingly contrite. “I’m sorry.”

Rhodey throws him an analyzing look. Something ripples beneath the surface of his gaze, something sharp and strict, but neither of them give out any clues of what it might be. Rogers nods, the same way Tony’s seen Rhodey’s subordinates nod at him after receiving orders, and he wonders, if only for a second, what could have possibly prompted this interaction when he has never before seen Rogers submit to Rhodey’s position in any way.

And contrary to what Tony expects, this doesn’t make the tension in the room worse – it makes it lighter. Rhodey relaxes, and in turn, all of them do.

It truly is the end of times, he thinks to himself, with a strange amusement, maybe verging a little on mania. Who would have known this is what they needed.

“Alright.” Rhodey says, nodding to himself. “Then we’ll work. We’ll find a way out of this.”

“O…kay.” Bruce stretches, hesitantly. “So, where do we go from here?”

“The books.” Natasha reminds them quickly, with efficient, laser focus – if Tony didn’t know any better, he would almost say it’s all a desperate attempt to change the subject. “Did anyone find anything in them?”

“Wait, Lang is still missing.” Bruce reminds them, concerned. “Shouldn’t we look for him?”

“Any idea where he is, FRIDAY?” Tony asks.

“Mr. Lang left the Compound four hours after he settled in his room with the book he selected from the collection provided by Wong. He did not say where he was headed, but he left with his suit, and informed me he would be back as soon as possible. That he only needed to check something.” FRIDAY informs.

“You sure about that?”

“I am.”

“Alright. Which book did he have?”

“The one on the Reality Stone, Boss.”

“You think he found something?” Tony asks, warily.

FRIDAY makes the briefest of pauses. “He stopped halfway through reading to leave, Boss. He seemed agitated.”

“What was he reading?” Rogers asks, equally distressed.

FRIDAY helpfully brings up a projection, but the text is too long to be read quickly as their anxiety demands. Tony skims through it on reflex, trying to catch key-words – space, distance, thread, transfer, energy, units, reality. ‘Reality’ is expected, and ‘space’ and ‘energy’ don’t surprise him, but no mention of mind, soul or time, at least not in the paragraphs selected; but had they been there, Tony doubts FRIDAY wouldn’t have brought them up. She’s smarter than that. So, probably no mention of them. Energy transfer is noteworthy, as is thread; He does know Infinity Stones leave a trail, and most likely are connected, so maybe Lang was onto something before he left.

“Gimme the SparkNotes version, dear.”

“My most accurate translation suggests he was reading a section on the units that form what humans perceive as reality. The language is dated, which makes translation difficult, but I believe the accurate modern term would be particles, Boss.”

Oh.

Particles.

Pym Particles.

What was Lang—

“Have we found Hank Pym yet?”

“No, Boss.”

“You think he’s going for the Particles? The ones that power the Ant-Man suit?” Rogers asks, frowning. “Why would he, if he had the suit with him? To use it he would need to have particles in the first place.”

“So it’s not the Particles themselves—” Tony continues.

“It’s got to be something else Hank Pym had hidden.” Rogers completes, gaze hard and resolute.

Tony turns to him, curious. “D’you have any idea what it might be?”

Rogers shakes his head. “No. We know about as much as you do about those Particles. Probably less, actually.” He says, but the humor in his words is hollow. “Scott was very protective of the secrets of his suit. Something about not wanting to get on Pym’s bad side.”

“Can’t blame him, Pym is a hardass.” Tony concedes, exhaling a frustrated breath. “But I guess we know all we can know about them without Lang being here. Pym kept those things very well-hidden, and no one could get their hands on a sample, even if they tried. There’s no way of knowing what else he was hiding under his mattress.”

“Scott knows something.” Rogers affirms, with surprising confidence. “He’ll bring it back to us.”

Yeah. Hopefully.

Christ, Tony really hopes so.

“Something about those Particles doesn’t sound right.” Bruce muses out loud, with a confused expression on his face. “Hank Pym has to be hiding something.”

“Yeah, from what I hear about the guy, he always is. Was.” Tony shrugs, uncertain. “Maybe Lang will let us take a look at it when he gets back. Not exactly my area – something about the distance between atoms, maybe nuclear fission, I don’t know – but maybe you’ll have more luck with that.”

Bruce pauses, not very convinced. “Yeah, maybe.”

Thor shifts in an odd way, jittery, standing up straighter. Tony catches the movement at the periphery of his sight, but isn’t brave enough to turn and check, afraid that Thor might be waiting to meet his gaze.

Their conversation has not left his mind yet. He still doesn’t know what to think of it.

“Alright, that’s as good as any.” Tony mumbles to himself, scratching his head nervously, a sheepishness he hasn’t felt in years crawling under his skin with sharp pinpricks of needles. “Let’s talk about the other ones, then. What do we got?”

“I got Space.” Rocket informs, going as far as to raise a finger awkwardly, looking distinctly uncomfortable when everyone throws him a considering look. “And Nebula got Soul.”

“Anything useful?” Natasha asks, quietly.

“Nothing I didn’t expect to find.” Rocket discouragingly says. “Out of everyone in this room we’re the ones with most experience in space-travel, and everything written there is pretty much what we already knew. It seems like the guy was studying wormholes and space-jumps, you know, basic stuff. We use it all the time, with the ships and all. Metal boy here has seen it.”

By metal-boy, of course, he means Tony. He wonders if he should be offended – if not on his own behalf, at least, in behalf of the suit. But it’s not really worth it to argue with the alien raccoon, is it?

“Is that what you meant by jumps?” Tony asks Nebula, who nods curtly.

“Ships don’t create wormholes, they require too much energy. And they’re dangerous. But there are plenty of points in the universe where passages open and let us move from one gate to another faster if you push through them with the right amount of energy.”

“The Nova have been cataloging them for centuries, it’s pretty standard information out there. You fly to the jump point, boost up, and it will take you to the other point it's connected to. Easy.” Rocket explains.

“And these passages are just there? No one is creating them?” Rhodey inquires, suspicious.

“No. Not that we know of?” Rocket shrugs, throwing Nebula a wondering look. “I mean, you can definitely create wormholes, but those aren’t like that. You notice a wormhole when it forms, kinda hard not to. It takes a lot to make one. These jumps are just there – and you gotta be careful, because sometimes they move and it’s a pain in the ass when you jump across the galaxy through a bunch of them and get all warped in space-time. I’m talkin’ from experience, here.”

“And they don’t close?” Bruce frowns.

“Yeah, they close, that’s why they’re awful, because you have to pry them open every time, it sucks the entire fuel of the ship if you’re not careful.” Rocket grumbles, dismayed.

“I thought Einstein-Rosen Bridges were the only way to make that kind of travel.” Rogers says in that tone of his, the one that always verges between question and accusation – Tony is used to it, something he recognizes as something so uniquely Steve, but to hear it along with the term Einstein-Rosen Bridges, in Steve’s voice, for some reason is very jarring.

Not that he’s stupid, or not capable of following their logic or learning about wormholes and Bridges – Tony knows better than to fall for his boy-next-door look or his innocent blue eyes, battered and weary as they might be in his… Lawless Bandit, Righteous Vigilante outfit. Tony knows the guy is way smarter than he looks, he just – he wasn’t expecting Steve to pay attention to the science of this stuff. He usually doesn’t. That’s usually Tony’s and Bruce’s job.

Tony just wasn’t expecting him to know. Or to pay enough attention, he guesses. It’s just a little surprising.

“It’s the Tree of Life.” Thor exhales, in almost wondrous realization, eyes wide in an agitated expression. “That is what we mean when we talk about Yggdrasil moving through the universe – it’s how the Bifrost allowed us to cross great distances in seconds. We manipulate the branches using dark energy, pushing and pulling two points closer or farther apart, so it’s faster to travel. When the two points are close enough, it’s possible to cross them like a doorway. I suspect this is what the rings of the Sorcerers do, to allow us access to his library.”

“So dark energy it’s not just something that’s making the universe wider, it can also be used to shrink and twist it at will?” Bruce asks, raising his eyebrows, looking at Thor through his eyelashes as his head bows down in thoughtful consideration.

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“How can that work and not just create a wormhole? When bringing two points of the universe so close together they can be crossed? Isn’t that the point of a wormhole?” Rhodey asks, clearly unnerved by the vagueness that seems to surround their every idea and theory, despite the frankly absurd amount of information they have displayed in the shop’s main holoboard.

“And aren’t wormholes exactly what the Space Stone does?” Rogers adds, his brows scrunched tightly in suspicious confusion. “To create a passage for something like New York? Thor – when you used the Bifrost, what you opened was an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. I read the SHIELD files, Dr. Foster herself helped to identify the activity in New Mexico.”

“They stole her research, actually.” Thor complains, but he doesn’t dwell on it long enough for anyone to interrupt him. “The problem with any sort of translation of knowledge is that every time, some of the information is lost on the way. I can’t explain the magic of Asgard in a way that will fully make sense because you insist on dividing that knowledge in categories, when for us, it’s all part of a whole.”

It seems to frustrate him, this apparent divide between them. Since their small confessional moment in the chilly quiet of this very same workshop, Tony finds himself very aware of Thor’s nature as a nearly-immortal being, a god; But rarely any of them have the chance to see the effects of this divide on Thor’s side, to see him struggle with communication or knowledge. It’s easy to forget, with how easy-going and friendly he could be, how open to learn their ways and customs he always presented, how understanding he could act when those ways and customs showed themselves to be foreign or contradictory to him – but truth is, there is a gap, a gap of cultures and centuries, of worldviews and language, and for all of humanity’s amazing discoveries, there are still bits of information that are largely beyond their reach, and it rankles.

Thor reaches for the nearest table, and he grabs a wrench and a screwdriver seemingly at random, holding them in his fists as visual aids, as if he cannot fathom any other way to demonstrate what he’s trying to say.

“What you call Bridges, and what Rocket calls jumps, you may see them as two different forces or you may not. It doesn’t really matter. The principle is the same. We have two essential forces in this universe who are in constant odds with each other – the one that pulls things together, and the one that pushes them apart.” He brings the tools together and then pulls them away with exaggerated caution, as if he’s being painstakingly slow for their sakes. Rocket’s brows push up, and Tony had no idea a raccoon’s face could express so much disgust so clearly before this. “And there’s no way to separate them. They mirror each other, and for reality itself to exist, they need to work together. You may see them as different things – like this is a… whatever this is, I don’t remember what these are called –, but they are both tools. They serve a similar purpose, even if they perform different functions.”

“Actually, those two perform exactly the same function.” Rhodey point out, matter-of-factly.

“Well, you understand.” Thor drops his hands, with a sigh of resignation. “I know you have many names for these events, but the truth is that many of those are exactly the same event, simply in different scales. The force that pulls an – an atom together, is the same force that pulls entire galaxies into being.”

“What’s that got to do with a Tree of Life?” Barton asks, expression twisted into wary disbelief.

“The Tree of Life is what keeps the forces acting together. It’s branches are the paths were the forces flow, and the planets and galaxies are created within them move when they move. When galaxies collide, and when they drift apart – it’s all caused by the Tree’s motions across the universe. Eventually, some of those branches may align, and cause a Convergence, like the one I mentioned this world experienced many years ago. These jumps are similar – when two points are close enough in the branches of Yggdrasil, they can be crossed faster. Just like Jane could cross between Midgard and Svartalfheim.”

“Okay, but what about the wormhole?” Bruce inquires, leaning forward so he can catch Thor’s attention. “What makes a wormhole different from those jumps? Why isn’t every jump a wormhole? We would have noticed if a wormhole had opened somewhere after New York.”

“It did.” Tony says, with a jolt of remembrance. “London, 2013. That’s what you mean, right? Convergence? The huge wormholes in the city?”

Thor nods, though his expression turns somber. “Wormholes are… stronger. The Bifrost worked well because it was controlled, and Heimdall was… the finest of guardians.”

His mouth twitches strangely, like – like he’s trying to stop his chin from quivering. It’s unexpected and sudden, and Tony can’t help but notice the use of was, not is. Past tense. Bruce notices too, and he quickly moves closer with a concerned gaze, his entire face open in an expression of sympathy. He does not touch Thor, but they lock eyes, and an understanding seems to pass between them; A silent conversation, a question of are you okay? and an answer of I will be, followed by a meek, but comforting smile.

“But a Bridge like that that’s kept open for too long is dangerous.” Thor continues, after what feels like forever, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds of a tense pause. “It almost destroyed Asgard, when once it was kept open too far. The entire Bifrost had to be destroyed to stop it. Yggdrasil would have consumed it if left unattended. Wormholes work the same. The Bridges they open are not because two branches are close – they simply pull two points of the Universe together with no care for the consequences. No matter how distant, or how many other paths they may destroy on the way. Leave them open long enough, or make them large or powerful enough, and they will create a void that sinks forever, tearing through the branches of the Tree of Life and the fabric of reality itself, and when it refuses to close, the forces will have no choice but to pull everything towards its center, in vain attempt to balance its force.”

“Black holes.” Bruce blinks, aghast. “They create black holes.”

Thor nods. “Not even light can escape.”

Bruce looks like he’s having his entire perception of the Universe rearranged right before his eyes. Tony can understand – if not for the situation they’re in, to explore these new ideas and concepts with Thor would definitely be something he’d be very interested in. Tony has no qualms about expanding his knowledge in areas that are not his expertise or not of use in his work life; Knowledge, for him, used to be a source of infinite amusement and wonder, puzzles and challenges that would fill his days and nights with questions just desperate for answers, for riddles so eager to be solved, a hunger he can’t sate – but he can’t give in to the temptation now.

It’s sad, to realize they lost the chance to do this sooner. That he never asked. But then again – Thor had never spoken of this before, either. It’s very sobering to see the consequences of them never truly finding their balance before, the evidence of relationships that never got past that initial layer of intimacy, when the adrenaline of the battlefield had simply tricked them into a sense of camaraderie far more solid than it really was. He hadn’t even noticed.

He wonders if the others had.

“What about Time?” Nebula asks, in an almost demanding tone. “Where does it fit into all of this?”

“I had Time. I – I had the Time book.” Bruce shakes his head, reorienting himself. “Wong was right, it’s by far their most complete one, or at least it seems. Very precise, too. It does have spells – I guess it’s what they use when they create the rings and the… magic stuff. Probably what Strange worked with too, but it’s nothing we can replicate. Just chants and mandalas and not enough… numbers.”

“What about the theory?” Tony inquires.

“The theory is… interesting.” Bruce admits, and he sounds as if he’s surprised by his own admission. “Time travel is a tricky thing and it seems like not even magic can solve that. There’s an entire section on the Time Stone, the story of the guy who found it and created the necklace Strange wore – the Eye of Agamotto, they call it.”

“How did he get it?” Rogers asks.

“It seems he just… found it.” Bruce shrugs, helplessly. “Just like the Tesseract in Norway. It doesn’t mention anyone leaving it here, it seems like it was just laying there when he found it.”

“When?”

“Centuries ago.” Bruce exhales. “Way before the Tesseract was found. Or maybe they were found at the same time, but the Tesseract got hidden, and Agamotto just founded an entire secret society of monks around his.”

“If their weapons are based on dark energy – Reality Stone energy, why is their entire schtick built around the Time Stone?” Tony’s brows pinch together in confusion and he blinks rapidly, the discrepancy in logic making his head pound. “Shouldn’t they be a society of time-travelers, instead of a society of… whatever they are?”

Exactly – I thought that too – But it all has to do with space-time continuum.” Bruce points out, eyes wild.

“Alright, give us the version for Dummies, Doc, if you please.” Barton asks, mutedly.

Bruce presses his lips together, considering his words before continuing.

“Time is the fourth dimension. We have length, width, depth – but Time is… something else. It’s what gives us coordinates that helps us find things in space at a certain time. If in a first moment, the object is at a certain coordinate, and then after some moments have passed, it moves – The way we track this movement across space, identifying where it was and then where it went is how we get… Time.”

Some of them nod, a little uncertain, but with enough willingness to let Bruce’s explanation continue that no one interrupts.

“Since space and time are linked, Time is relative.” Bruce points out. “If an object – let’s say a planet – distorts Space in a certain way, it’s movement and it’s relationship with everything around it changes, and that includes its effect on Time. It’s how you get Time Dilation and all sorts of Time-related issues in physics. That’s why Einstein figured wormholes would be the way to figure out time-travel, because they’re so extreme that they way gravity acts around them is different than usual. The only other options are blackholes and certain kinds of stars, but none of them seem to act as a door. Wormholes could – and if they bend Space so strongly, they also bend Time. Maybe enough to bend it backward, even.”

“What about the Sorcerers then?” Natasha frowns.

Bruce lets out a harsh breath. “They were surprisingly accurate with their concerns, especially considering how long ago that thing must’ve been written. It seems like the reason why they use dark energy – which is the domain of the Reality Stone, you’re right,” he vaguely gestures at Tony, and then runs his hand through his greying hair, messing his curls in a nervous tick. “Is exactly because they know it won’t mess with Time like that in small doses. If Thor is right, and there are passages they can access through smaller doses of energy and without the risk of opening a time-bending wormhole, they prefer that over using the Time Stone. Which is – very sensible of them.”

“Allowing just one guy to use it is just them assuming that this one guy knows better than to abuse his Time-powers, is that it?” Barton asks.

“I mean – wouldn’t you say that’s something to be concerned about?” Bruce raises his eyebrows. “Messing with Time is one of the most dangerous things someone can do. The Grandfather Paradox is only the surface of things that could go wrong.”

“Now that you mention it.” Tony shuffles, changing his weight from one leg to another, crossing his arms in a thoughtful motion. “I didn’t see Strange use the Stone.”

Except for—

(Tony.)

(There was no other way)

“Well, it seems he knew what he was carrying, at least.” Bruce muses. “They were being cautious. Guess this is why Wong warned us about the spells. Some of them mention Time Loops and Time Reversal and all sorts of stuff that could literally break the universe.”

“Then why didn’t it break when Thanos got the Mind Stone?” Rogers asks.

“I don’t know.” Bruce admits, torn. “Maybe it did. We’ll never know. If the Stone can be used on a single object instead of the entire universe then maybe you could reverse Time in a small scale without it all falling apart. But if you can’t, and as soon as you activate it the whole universe just starts spinning backwards – there’s a big chance we wouldn’t remember anything that was reversed. Assuming Thanos would be the only thing in existence not reversing, he would know time went backwards, but we wouldn’t.”

“Only him and the Stones.” Thor says, cryptically.

Tony feels goosebumps breaking in his skin, the hair on his nape standing on end.

“Alright.” Rhodey exhales. “Mind Stone, then. Who got the Mind Stone?”

“I did.” Natasha replies.

“Anything good?”

Natasha purses her lips. “I tried cross-referencing with the information we had on the Scepter after Loki and Strucker, but it’s… complicated.”

“Anything useful?”

Natasha sighs, a motion Tony hasn’t seen her do in a very, very long time – time on the run aside. It’s not common to see her so affected, so frustrated, even when she’s at her most vulnerable. She sits on one of the benches and hunches over herself, her elbows on her knees, hands folded together, and the troubled look that passes through her eyes makes a shiver run down Tony’s spine.

“I was trying to find any correlation between what Strucker did to Wanda to what Loki did to Clint.”

Just like that, a cold feeling falls upon the room. Barton’s face goes hard as stone.

“And?” He asks.

“It’s not the same.” Natasha shakes her head, her tone not relieved, just confused. “I was trying to find a pattern, but it keeps falling apart. If Loki could manipulate you into his plan, maybe Strucker did the same with Wanda – but you were locked inside your mind, and Wanda wasn’t. At the same time, she got powers, and you didn’t.”

“And the Stone wasn’t killing either of them, even if Reality and Power seem to be a little murderous.” Rhodey reminds them.

“I’m not sure how much of that is just the Stones protecting themselves.” Bruce thinks out loud. “Because the Time Stone didn’t seem to be hurting Strange either, but again, he wasn’t using it. So maybe using them, or trying to use them, triggers some sort of self-defense. If they are sentient, it wouldn’t seem so impossible to me.”

“They could definitely be.” Rogers agrees, with steely conviction. “The Tesseract was used to power HYDRA weapons remotely but as soon as the Red Skull tried to use it by his own hand it destroyed him. Maybe they really are defending themselves.”

“And the Mind Stone would have no reason to do that, because it wants to reach the mind of who wields it.” Bruce nods curtly, confidence building in his expression.

“I don’t know if the Stone itself is looking for something or if it just follows the orders of whoever holds it.” Natasha shrugs, forlorn. “There’s not enough information to prove either option. If they are defending themselves it would explain why they sometimes try to kill their hosts, but that doesn’t explain Vision.”

“Vision was not human.” Barton points out.

“He also wasn’t evil.” Natasha replies. “Every other time we encountered someone who was under the influence of the Mind Stone they tried to kill us. You, Loki, Wanda, Ultron. Vision is the only one who didn’t – and he was the one carrying the Stone the longest. If all the others attacked us, why didn’t he?”

“Huh.”

They turn to Rhodey, surprised by his airy laugh. “What?”

“You said the Stones are, what, locality influenced? Affected by what’s close in the environment?” Rhodey asks.

“Yeah?” Bruce says.

“None of you think this is weird?” Rhodey asks, but he’s only met with confused stares in response. “That Ultron would focus on you as the biggest threat to the world after being made from a Stone used by two people who hated you all? One after the other?”

“Wait, what?” Tony shakes his head, closing his eyes tightly, mind reeling as if he’s been hit with a baseball bat.

“Think about it.” Rhodey makes an open-handed gesture, as if presenting an invitation. “We all know the reason why Loki came all the way down here was to get some revenge on Thor for being King. Maybe he was being manipulated or maybe he wasn’t, but there’s no reason for him to choose this planet specifically other than to get back at Thor for having been around before. So – revenge. And you all got in his way, so obviously his problem with Thor extends to all of you.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Tony asks.

“Then the Scepter gets lost and some HYDRA guy gets his hands on it – and hating Steve is almost a pre-requisite to get a membership – and he uses it on the two people who hate you all the most in all of Sokovia. If that thing really works that way, is it really any wonder how Ultron came out the way he did?”

No one in the room makes a sound.

(No.)

(It can’t be.)

“A lot of people had a lot of things to blame us for.” Bruce reminds him, wryly.

“Yeah, but Ultron? The program had been successful for a total of what, five minutes, before it decided the Avengers were the worst thing on the planet? Doesn’t that seem a little biased to you? I’ve worked in the military – you guys don’t scratch the surface of the list of the worst things that are out there.” Rhodey insists, voice raising. “Tony made him. I’ve seen the things he makes, you all met JARVIS. You really think the homicidal part came from him? Or any of you?”

(Stop.)

(Stop, Rhodey.)

“Are you saying—” Thor asks, slowly. “That the last person to wield the Stone before us was not Strucker, but Maximoff?”

(Shit.)

“What reason would he have to run to Sokovia after he destroyed the Tower?” Rhodey says, rhetorically. “I’m just saying – he could have built his murder-trap anywhere in world. He could have built it in the Tower, to spite you. But he didn’t. Instead, he chose to go back, and find Wanda and her brother to convince them to fight with him against you. Do none of you think that’s not a coincidence?” 

“Are you saying that if we get the Stone, it’ll refuse to work with us?” Natasha asks.

“I don’t think so, ‘cause like you said – Vision.” Rhodey arguments. “So something in there made a difference.”

(Fuck, that can’t make sense.)

(It can’t.)

“The Helicarrier.” He breathes, so softly he almost can’t hear himself, but all heads snap in his direction, like hounds to prey. “The fight, before the turbines exploded. The Scepter was in the room.”

“And we all were fooled into Loki’s plans.” Thor agrees, far too quickly, and Tony gets the awful feeling that he’s somehow being pushed into a corner.

After a long, unsettling pause, Barton murmurs, “Wanda always did have a problem with Stark. With all of us, but mostly Stark.”

“Even Vision knew.” Rogers adds, his gaze lost in the distance. “Even if they weren’t the same.”

Breathe.

(Oh God.)

Breathe.

The idea fills him with an almost irrational panic.

Tony had long ago accepted that his arrogance had been the reason why Ultron existed at all, nevermind Bruce’s involvement – Tony is the one who convinced him to do it, and he’s fully aware and okay with the fact. The blame is his. Was his. Is, still, he thinks, and it seems wrong to let Rhodey convince the others Wanda may have been the cause of Ultron’s murderous tendencies. Tony hadn’t known where those tendencies had come either, but – had he never insisted in the program, Ultron could have been avoided completely. So it still is largely his fault. And this is all just theory, right? Maybe the Stones are just evil. Maybe Sokovia was a coincidence. Hell, maybe something in Ultron did remember about Wanda and Pietro, but who’s to say that just wasn’t him simply reaching out to known potential allies?

But what about Vision.

What about Vision.

Tony usually loves when things start to makes sense, but now, he really, really doesn’t like it. He can still argue that Vision’s nature has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with Thor – the hammer thing was more than enough proof for him, even if Thor would disagree. But Sokovia… It’s really throwing him off his rhythm. Something about that just sounds… right. And it shouldn’t.

He – He’s done with agonizing over what Wanda could or could not have done or thought or planned about… everything. Tony’s feelings for her could never be easily unraveled into palatable pieces when the very foundation of their acquaintance was all but doused in guilt, and though she had committed to the Avengers and into making peace with the wrongdoings the team, or Tony himself, might have done to her, the sting of her initial feelings is something will always echo in the corners of his mind, much like Charles Spencer’s mother’s voice.

Tony knows better than to believe everyone hurt by his weapons would forgive him just because he had a change of heart, pun not intended.

She’d been angry, and she had the right to be angry. Her brother too.

And that’s why he knew the sensible thing to do was to not force his presence of her any more than necessary. It was just one more argument on why leaving the active roster of the team would be such a good idea.

Pepper had asked him, in the beginning. Is this because of that girl? Wanda?

Tony had told her no. Of course not. This was about them, Tony and Pepper, and nothing else.

It had been half-truth. It’d sounded good enough.  

And he had agonized over it, of course. Of course he would have. When they conducted tests and trials to analyze the extent of Wanda’s powers Tony read all the reports. He sent in a bunch of simulation protocols and suggestions and dutifully poured hours into the charts and results, the footage and the annotations, and made sure no equipment would ever go amiss for her training, just like the others. He helped to get her Visa request going, he put in a good word for the press when they frowned upon adopting “Ultron’s little witch” into the team, he smiled and nodded at her when they saw each other on the sporadic meetings he had with the team.

And he tried not to think too hard if she still hated him beneath all that or not. He didn’t think so, but what would he know. But probably not. They had somehow settled into a distant but professional relationship, and that had been okay for them.

So it feels wrong. It feels wrong, to harp on her hatred for them, for him, when so much had happened since Ultron was defeated. Since her brother was killed in the fight. Tony has never had the same feelings of care and protectiveness Steve and Clint had for her, but he’s never been… heartless. He respected her, or he tried to. Maybe he wasn’t good at it, but he tried. And he tried to make reparations when he could, even from a distance.

Tony hasn’t seen her as a villain or an enemy in a very long time. He didn’t know enough about her to know if she felt the same, but it doesn’t really matter. Not now, surely.

But it’s more than that.

It this is right – if the Stone’s last master or whatever, before they got their hands on it were the twins, not Strucker, Thor’s vision—

He doesn’t know if that changes something. That’s the ridiculous part, it’s all just a huge damn guess; But if it’s true, if Wanda really was connected to the Stones’ hivemind so deeply the Mind Stone came back for her in Sokovia, how can Tony be sure Thor’s theory is not true?

“Thor had an idea.” Tony tells them, the words tumbling out of his mouth almost without his permission, overflowing from his lungs and chest in a torrent he simply has no means to control. He already dreads the outcome of this conversation, but there’s no way to avoid it, not now this is an option, a possibility. “He said he has reason to believe the Stones tried to send us a message, or send anyone a message, I guess, to warn us about Thanos. Maybe to help us defeat him.”

The others get obviously startled, stunned into silence.

“How?”, Rhodey presses, almost aggressively.

Tony looks at Thor, but he finds an equally pleading stare looking back, both of them standing on fences in the matter of how to break the news to the others – fully aware of the reactions they might invite if they sell this wrong.

“Tell them what you told me.” Tony urges, with a wave of his hand. “See if we can make some sense of that first.”

Is that cowardly?

No. Right? No. He just – He needs to hear it again. Maybe this time it’ll make more sense. Maybe this time it’ll sound less crazy. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It’s all just a bunch of maybe’s and Tony needs a second to breathe.

“When Maximoff attacked us, back when they were helping that man Klaue steal the Vibranium, I had a vision.” Thor tells them after a pensive pause, measuring his words with surprising care, the gruffness in his voice a hypnotic tune that seems to fill his words with powers unknown.

“We know, buddy, that’s kind of why Vision got that name.” Barton reminds him, exactly as Tony did, though he doesn’t seem unwilling to listen to Thor’s theory – but at the same time, unable to not point out the obvious conclusion.

“But how could I have known, before the Vibranium had been stolen?” Thor perseveres, undeterred by Barton’s disbelief. “Before Ultron could even start creating his new form?”

They pause.

“Look, I’m don’t usually believe in these things, but isn’t that the point of a vision? Something that comes out of nowhere, for no reason?” Natasha points out, and Barton moves his head in exasperated agreement.

“Not when these Stones are concerned.” Thor shakes his head. “I don’t believe that. I saw him, I saw… I saw enough to believe what Maximoff showed me was more than a simple trick to defeat us.”

Rogers and Romanoff look distinctly uncomfortable at the idea, and Tony can’t blame them.

“What do you think it was?” Rogers inquires, warily.

“I think it was a message from the Stones themselves.” Thor affirms, confidently.

“You think the Mind Stone tried to speak to you. Through Wanda.”

“Not just the Mind Stone.” Thor tells him. “Possibly the Time Stone too.”

What? It can do that?” Rocket exclaims, and they all burst into varying expressions of dissent, loud and low, assertive and confused.

“Why would the Stone talk to us if it hated us while Ultron had it? Or Wanda, or whoever it was?” Barton asks, crossing his arms and shrugging, incredulous.

“And nothing Wanda has shown us could be a message of any kind. We would’ve known if it was.” Natasha affirms.

“What did you see?” Thor asks her, too bluntly, and Natasha closes off like a door slamming shut.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Anything that could be interpreted as a vision of the future? Anything that might have happened in the years after we first met Maximoff, or is happening now?” Thor suggests.

“What I saw had nothing to do with the future. She showed me my past.” Natasha bites out, practically growling.

“Thor.” Bruce intervenes. “This is not a good idea.”

“I have reasons to believe it could be true.” Thor insists, ignoring Bruce’s warning.

“Why, then?” Barton presses.

Thor pauses, a grave, weighty thing, solemn and thoughtful, and though when he speaks his voice is full of care, there is no doubt that his words, carefully enunciated and selected, are dead serious. “There are things in this universe you do not understand. Things I don’t understand. There are beings that exist in realms beyond my grasp, let alone yours, but we know they exist and they see things we can’t. One of those beings are Seers. Beings with gifts for prophecies and strong connections to Time, who – who can perceive past, present, and future in a way none of us can. After Maximoff attacked us and Barton lead us to his home, I left to ask aid to one of those creatures, called Norns.”

“Is that how you knew about the Stones? From a prophet?” Rogers raises his eyebrows in surprise.

“The Norns were the ones who informed me there were more Stones besides Mind. We have their knowledge to thank for Vision’s life. And that wasn’t all – They told me about Thanos’ Gauntlet, they warned me of the dangers of Extinction that would fall upon us. They warned me of the destruction of my home.

“Why have you never told us this?” Bruce asks, softly.

“Because I did not know it was important.” Thor confesses. “Until her.

Thor points at Nebula, bold, and it’s easy to see how she instantly hardens her expression and posture as soon as all the attention shifts to her.

“Me?” Nebula asks, defensive.

“Yes, you.” Thor shifts his weight, gaining confidence. “Daughter of Thanos. Nebula. I know it’s too perfect to be a coincidence. And you arrived with Stark – I do not know how it could be any more clear.”

“I can think of a lot of ways you could be more clear.” Rhodey grumbles.

“The Norns showed me the Stones would come together in a single object – a gauntlet, formed by a giant nebula.”

Nebula doesn’t react, her body completely stiff, but her eyes dart quickly to the distance and back, as if she’s silently connecting the dots.

“What do you think about this?” Barton asks, capturing Tony’s attention. “I mean – he told you first.”

“I’m… still trying to figure it out.” Tony exhales, long and winded. “I know how it sounds crazy, but apparently the fact Nebula got here with me is also a big deal. I’m somehow also involved.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I saw him too.” Thor clarifies. “And yet, I saw none of you. Only Stark. And he was the one to bring Nebula to us.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Rogers argues, his face pinched in confusion, as if he’s struggling to keep up. “We never saw Wanda display any… prophetic abilities—”

“Believe me, I told him that.” Tony assures.

“And it’s not unlikely that a person who came from space would be named Nebula – No offense—”

“I told him that too.” Tony insists.

“So what makes you believe this might be true?” Rogers lowers his head, the motion somehow making his gaze seem even sharper, even more piercing.

Not any more reason he has to believe anything they’re theorizing since all this started. He doesn’t really know what to think – he can understand why Thor believes it, and it’s hard not to be convinced by his earnestness, but at the same time, Tony has very good reasons for not wanting to believe Wanda could somehow show them visions of the future. Though the Chitauri had been long gone when the images where put inside his brain, the memory of Ebony Maw’s ship descending into New York like a reckoning is still fresh, and his fears of a future alien invasion were proven true. And all this talk of wormholes and aliens – Tony can still see them in his mind’s eye, the deep blue hue of space being split open to allow their home to be torn to shreds.

They don’t know about it because Tony has never told them. They’ve never told him about their visions either.

Natasha had said her vision was not from the future, but from the past.

But Tony is starting to fear that the distinction might not actually mean that much.

“I know this isn’t something we thought was possible before, but we definitely have to consider it might be possible now.” Tony settles, carefully, before directing his words to Natasha, “I know you said what you saw came from your past, but we can’t prove that what Thor saw really didn’t come from the future. Actually—” He sniffs, uncomfortable, “Thor does have a point. He saw Vision. Before he was created. If one of the events he saw really came from the future, we have no way of separating what came from the past and what didn’t.”

Natasha’s lips twist in sorrow.

“She showed me the Red Room.” Natasha confesses, in a tiny voice, cracking at the edges. “My training. My… graduation.”

Oh… Fuck.

Tony feels the impulse to apologize, but the words won’t make it out of his mouth. He’s not sure he should say them. He’s not sure how to react.

Natasha lowers her eyes, in deep thought. “They were all memories. Nothing else.”

And it seems like she won’t say another word on the matter. Which is okay. She doesn’t have to.

But then—

She turns to Rogers.

“You?” She asks.

Rogers looks at her like she has just pulled a knife on him out of nowhere.

“I—” Rogers pauses, and he swallows deep so deep the bob of his adam’s apple seems painful, his throat tight around the words he doesn’t want to let out. His jaw does that twitchy thing again, neck muscles jumping out as if he’s hiding a flinch of pain, and just when Tony thinks he’s about to try to shift the conversation away from himself, miraculously, he says, “Mine were memories too. From before the ice. They weren’t… I wasn’t actually there in the moment, she showed me the moment the war ended. I was already in the ice by then. But I recognized the place, the clothes. The… people. It was all from my past. It was just a… dream.”

Just a dream.

Tony hopes so.

He really hopes so.

“Banner?” Barton suggests.

“Oh, I – I would rather skip my turn on the Truth Circle, if that’s alright.” Bruce laughs, a little hysterically. “I don’t think it would be good for anyone to relive what I saw that day.”

Fair point.

A beat passes. “Stark?”

Tony raises his eyes, but doesn’t say a word. They don’t know.

Do they?

“Wanda told us,” Barton says, with worrying deliberation, “that she got to you too. Inside the Base, in Sokovia.”

“She what?” Rhodey and Bruce ask in unison, leaning forward.

Shit.

“Yeah.” Tony confesses, in a breathless grumble. “I didn’t notice until Johannesburg when she got you too, but… yeah.”

“Anything you feel like sharing with the class?” Rhodey asks, in a tone that leaves no doubts that he really thinks Tony should be sharing it with the class.

“It was—” Tony gulps. “It was the usual. Wormholes, alien invasions. Lots of Chitauri. But considering we had the Chitauri beat by 2015, I didn’t think it was anything worth noting.”

Half-truths. Maybe they can be good enough.

(Or maybe they can’t, Tony.)

“Great.” Rocket huffs. “So now what?”

Fuck if Tony knows.

“You know.” Bruce says, when the silence stretches too far. “I – I gotta be honest, when I saw Wanda arrive at the Compound with you guys I was very surprised. I wasn’t expecting her to stay after what happened with Sokovia and Ultron. And it’s weird, that she stayed here, of all places, when…”

“When she tried to get us killed with the murder-bot we created?” Tony laughs, voice hollow.

“Yeah.” Bruce agrees, in all seriousness. “I’m assuming one of you convinced her to stay?”

“Not me.” Tony says, maybe a little too readily, and he tries not to wince as he amends, “But in the end, it was kind of a group decision. We were down a few members, so there was extra room for her anyway.”

“Okay… Me and who else?”

“Thor.” Tony points out. “And me.”

Thor blinks. “You left?”

“I took a break. Had some downtime, fixed things with Pepper.” Whatever good that might or might not have done, it is the truth. “I needed to clear my head a little bit. Because what happened in Sokovia was—”

Messy, goes unsaid. Shitty. Awful. It had been many things, and no word Tony can think of can capture the feeling quite right.

“Did she ever talk about this? About what she did to us?” Bruce asks in Barton’s general direction.

“She did.” Barton says. “Once. Being on the run was tough on her. On all of us, but it got to her pretty bad. They were singling her out all the time.”

“I can see why.” Bruce snorts, and seems totally unbothered by the look Barton throws him. “What? You want me to pretend she didn’t make me destroy a city?”

Barton doesn’t argue, which is thankfully more civil than Tony would have hoped before, especially when it came to defending Wanda, but he does say, “You didn’t seem to mind fighting next to her when Thanos came. Or Ultron.”

“Well, I have an amazing ability to prioritize. Doesn’t mean I was super comfortable doing that.” Bruce points out, voice full of sharp edges, none of them with remorse. “And if you remember, as soon as I got the chance I ran.”

That sobers Barton right up, and he visibly recoils.

“I’m just saying.” Bruce says, a little softer. “I’m not sure how much I would trust whatever Wanda Maximoff put in our heads.”

And he has every right to doubt it. It’s true. He does.

So do all of them, Tony tells himself. They all have reason to doubt it.

Maybe this is nothing. It’s probably nothing.

“I think Thor’s right.”

But dammit. Dammit.

Any chance. Any chance he can get – it’s good enough for him.

“I think he might be onto something. If not about Maximoff, about the Stones.”

“Alright, let’s assume he is, what does it matter?” Rhodey asks indignant. “What does that change?”

“Well, first, if the Stones actually bothered to send us the universe’s most cryptic telegram to warn us about Thanos, we really have to consider what else they might have left behind. Maybe Wanda’s powers were an unreliable source but if we can access other sources that had less… human interference, we might find some useful information to beat that guy.”

“And where do you think we will find this information?” Natasha asks.

Well.

Now or nothing.

“My first pick would be Vision.” Tony admits. “But since that can happen… Next in line is… Ultron.”

For a long moment, there is nothing but silence. Tony feels like all the oxygen in the world is suddenly gone.

“Tony.” Rogers says, slowly. “That’s dangerous.”

And it is. He’s right. He’s – that’s just a fact. Rogers is right. But—

“I think it might be worth taking a look.” Tony nods, injecting some confidence into his words. “I wouldn’t say this any other time, but this… This is different. We got too much at stake.”

“Doesn’t that make it more dangerous?” Barton wonders.

“We’re beyond dangerous now.” Tony laughs, wry. “Whatever we do, it’s not gonna be more dangerous than six Infinity Stones, no matter how hard we try – but we have the tech. And we can go even further: Ultron and Vision for the Mind Stone, the Reactor for the Tesseract, maybe Lang can bring us something to help with the Reality Stone too – if they somehow left a paper trail, we have to find it. Maybe we can use the Stones against themselves.”

They do not disagree, but it’s – it’s not enough. He can see they’re considering it, trading looks and biting lips, awkwardly shifting weights on the balls of their feet, but it’s not enough. There’s a manic anxiety inside Tony’s chest now, the same rush of adrenaline he gets after throwing himself off a high place but before the suit can catch him; the uncertainty of free fall, and he needs to be caught before he reaches the ground.

“You want honesty?” Tony asks them, voice rough and snappy, raw, the words clawing his throat in resistance all the way up from his lungs, but he forces them out anyway. Whatever it takes, to convince them. “Before Thanos wiped half the universe out, Strange told me a message.”

They look at him helplessly. “What message?”

(Tony—)

“He gave the Stone to Thanos willingly. Thanos didn’t kill him first. He didn’t steal it. Strange gave it to him.” Tony confesses.

Why.” Bruce rasps.

(Tony—)

“He said—” Tony breathes in deep. “There was no other way.”

“To what?”

“Win.” Tony shrugs. “I guess.”

Natasha’s face pinches in pain. “How is this winning?”

Tony considers this. It’s true. She’s right. But all he can say is—

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Notes:

I'd like to thank all of you for your patience and I'm very sorry for the delay in this chapter - but as you can all agree, these last few months have been hectic and crazy, and real life definitely took priority over my projects. But I am committed to this story until the end, so hopefully you all know that even if we have delays, I'm not abandoning this. You can all rest assured about that :) I also want to apologize for not replying to all the comments yet, but I will get to that very soon!

And though I know we all come to fanfics for some escapism, if you can, please take a moment to support the BLM Movement, and learn about and help with the Yemen Crisis and the Terror Bill in the Philippines.

Also, if you would like to contribute to BLM and also help the Marvel fandom with more Black representation at the same time, please check out the Marvel Fans 4 BLM Tumblr and see all the options you have!

As always, please stay safe, I hope you are all well, and I will see you all in the next one <3

Chapter 18: Chapter 18

Notes:

(Please, before reading, check the end notes for an important message and possible trigger warning.)

 

Speaking of Ultron.
 
AoU is a shitty movie. A real bad movie. But also - AoU is a goldmine, if you know what to look for. 

Since we're on the topic of children, I would like to raise a question for us to consider. There's a reason why I brought up Harley Keener. There is a reason why I believe Tony's determination to save Peter Parker is more important to assess his character than his relationship with Pepper. There's a reason why we're only talking about it now. And if I said Pepper is meant to showcase the duality of Tony's priorities and purpose, children - and whatever they might think of as children - also have a meaning of their own, the very foundation of this second big emotional discussion we truly can't escape if we want to get to the bottom of this. Responsibility.

So I ask: how to deal with conflicting emotions over feeling responsible for the people and the things you feel like are yours? Yours to keep safe, or yours to take blame for? We'll see.

Let's talk about JARVIS, Vision, and Ultron - Tony's children, for better, or for worse.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“What’s left of Ultron?”

“It’s complicated.” Tony huffs, moving closer to the worktables in a wobbly step. “I have all the original plans for what the program was supposed to be – his calibration settings, the code, the learning parameters, but none of those are exclusive to Ultron.”

“You based his code on JARVIS.” Rogers affirms, nodding.

“Just like FRIDAY, and all the others.” Tony gestures into the air, and without further prompting a screen comes up right before him, like a curious cat popping its head in to check out the room when someone calls its name. FRIDAY. Her projection is almost as large as JARVIS was when displayed in open space, but on the screen, she looks tiny, a fragile little thing. If Tony didn’t know any better, he would say she’s shy. But no. She’s never been shy about anything, but she is hesitant. Brave, his baby girl, but still learning. Still young. “Ultron was different because it was meant to interfere in outside problems without inside initial order, but that’s why it was still on the board and not out there. Too many variables.”

“But he was working through the internet and the systems just like JARVIS did, right?” Natasha asks. “Invading National Security databases, getting information on us? He got that like JARVIS would have, it wasn’t the Stone.”

“That’s right.” Tony nods. “And… usually that leaves a trail.”

“Usually?” She frowns.

“I don’t design my AIs to leave trails.” Tony tilts his head to the side, raising his eyebrows. “It doesn’t look good when people find out the guy who invaded the Pentagon was you. But even though they weren’t meant to leave trails they were also meant to store information in the most secure way possible, which means keeping information. That’s how JARVIS kept himself hidden when Ultron attacked. So we – there’s still a couple of things here and there we can check that he didn’t manage to destroy.”

“Let’s do it then.” Rogers decides, like it’s just that simple.

Tony takes in a deep breath, clearing his throat.

“A lot of what we have is left from JARVIS and Vision. Ultron tried his best to take himself totally out of my systems – he was having a bit of a rebellious phase.” Tony mmuses, the instinct to joke too deeply ingrained to stop, but his eyes never stray from the screen, where FRIDAY starts to pull up the files Tony has kept hidden for years now, files he never thought he would take another glance at ever again. “But still, part of what he was… was in JARVIS. Same thing with Vision.”

“And the other part was the Stone, and Maximoff.” Thor concludes. “Assuming her connection with the Scepter is what caused him to become our enemy, the Stone might also have left other things behind.”

“Maybe.” Tony exhales. “We don’t have time to go through thousands of hours of footage of Vision, but from what I can tell, Vision never said or did anything that might seem like the Stone was warning us about Thanos. Unless someone else has something they wanna share?”

“Other than how I’m wondering how much of their relationship was actually just the Stone bringing them together?” Barton sways, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “No, not at all.”

Natasha makes a curious face and turns to him, slowly. “You think that was the Stone?”

“Aren’t you wondering too? I mean, I had no problem with it, they seemed like they liked each other a lot – but I wasn’t expecting it, y’know? Caught me off guard. I guess this just sounds like it makes sense.”

“Well, you’re not the best at picking up emotional cues.” Natasha drawls.

“Wow, say what you’re really thinking, Nat, don’t mind me.” Barton jabs, but Natasha only shrugs and turns back, though her eyes remain clouded, like her focus is far away.

“I keep thinking – why would the Mind Stone contact us when none of the others did?” Rogers points out. “If the Sanctum had the Time Stone for so many years, and that Stone could have seen Thanos coming, why wouldn’t it warn them sooner, if it was going to send a warning at all?”

“We are a most likely target.” Rhodey says, somber. “Even if they had the Stone for centuries, they weren’t using it – or at least they say they weren’t. But since the Avengers were created we got, what? Contact with three Stones in the span of a couple of years? Three out of six? And we’ve actually defended some of them against enemies? It would make sense to warn us.”

“Also Time is complicated.” Bruce offers. “Even if certain events are set in stone, not all of them might be, and Thanos coming might have been only a possibility and not a certainty until a specific point. Maybe something happened that shifted the universe in a way that set us on a path where it would cross his, and only then the Stones thought it would be necessary to warn us about him.”

“Could that event have been Ultron?” Natasha asks.

“Maybe.” Bruce shrugs. “It could have been anything. It would make sense if it was something that happened close to the time Thor got his vision, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it was. We would have to ask the Time Stone itself to know, but that’s not happening anytime soon.”

“The point is that even if it’s too late to stop Thanos from snapping his fingers, if the Stones were worried enough to send us a message, they might have left us clues on how to destroy him.” Thor conjectures.

“Hold on a second.” Rocket interrupts. “If the Stones can see the future, what’s to say Thanos won’t use them and know we’re coming?”

“Nothing.” Bruce admits, after a tense pause. “He could. He might already have done that, even. But what choice do we have?”

“We have no way of knowing what decisions become fixed points in time. Possibilities are still just possibilities, until maybe one of them cements into truth. When you go left at the intersection and find out there’s no return, you just have to keep driving.” Tony shrugs.

“Problem is Thanos is driving and we’re blindfolded on the passenger seat.” Natasha grumbles.

“More like the trunk.” Barton complains.

“Point is: We gotta figure out his weaknesses. The Stones’ weaknesses. Okay, maybe they tried to warn us about Thanos and we didn’t notice, but did they leave anything else? Anything? More specifically – did they leave anything that would help us fight back once he came?”

“The Stones have to be destroyed by something equally powerful.” Natasha frowns, opening her hands in an exasperated gesture. “We know this, Vision figured it out.”

“Yes, but we’re not trying to destroy them, we’re trying to steal them.” Tony points out emphatically. “I don’t know if Vision knowing how to destroy the Stone was just an educated guess or something the Stone told him, but the point is that if we can’t get close, we can’t get them, and Thanos has more than enough power to be able to fight us from afar.”

“Much like the Sorcerers use dark energy without the help of the Stones, we must find a way to fight back against the Stones in Thanos’ Gauntlet with matching power. Stormbreaker hit him once, but if the Stones destroyed the Gauntlet, it is possible they could break Stormbreaker. It is not a certain strategy.”

Thor seems surprisingly neutral about the idea of Thanos being able to destroy his axe, Tony realizes in mild surprise. Or maybe not neutral but – prepared for the possibility.

It’s almost shocking.

Of course, Tony can only wonder how much the loss of his hammer weighed on him, especially when it was seemingly destroyed by his sister, when Thor had always held his family, even the crazy ones, in such a high regard. And who really knows how much this axe actually means to him, if it means anything at all besides a replacement, no matter how strong it is? Tony doesn’t think he could ever know. The changes Thor has suffered clearly go so far beyond the way he looks, but even then, what can one weapon or another mean, to a man who valued his favorite so much? The only dangerous thing Tony has ever loved so fiercely had been his armor, and god knows his feelings on it are complicated on the best of days.

But he would be lying if he said he hadn’t expected more… distress from Thor at the idea of losing Mjolnir. The thing that, in no uncertain terms, proved his worth.

Maybe he has learned to live without it. Maybe not.

Tony doesn’t think he’s the person to judge on that decision.

“Then what about the dark energy? You wanna use portals to sneak in behind him?” Barton’s eyebrows shoot up, his expression disbelieving.

“No, but – that’s – that’s not a bad idea, write that down.” Tony points to absolutely no one, but FRIDAY will surely make note of it. “But what we know is that the Sorcerers in the Sanctum have dark energy figured out, or at least some of it, and hopefully Lang is still alive out there and will come back with good news.”

“He better.” Rocket mutters.

“And if he does,” Tony proceeds. “We might be even a step closer to solving this. But for now, while he’s gone, we do what we can on our side.”

“So we’re back on Vision and Ultron.” Rogers points out.

Yeah. Alright.

“Before JARVIS got uploaded into Vision I had to piece him together from scraps scattered around the servers. It was the only way he could hide from Ultron without being caught. When that happened, some bits of Ultron got left behind too, from before he cut himself off from the Tower.” Tony explains, for the sake of clarity.

“And what did he leave behind?”

“He and JARVIS had a conversation when he first came online. Before he attacked.”

Rogers eyes go razor sharp. “Do you have records of that conversation?”

He does. Of course he does.

Somedays, he wishes he didn’t.

“FRI?” Tony prompts.

The speakers crackle, just once, the same way it did the one and only time Tony heard it years ago, after he finally managed to put the pieces back together from the mangled mess that had been JARVIS’ memory – there would always be interference in there now, ghosts echoing between the waves, the auditory version of cracks in a mirror. Jagged bits that will never come fully close as they were before. But beneath it all, voices can still be heard.

JARVIS voice does not startle him, because it was never really gone, was it? Vision had inherited it. At first it had been painful, but the exposure throughout the years had made the scars easier to bear, a almost conforming knowledge that his creation would live on, even if in another form, and at the end of the day, Tony would never begrudge his AI for evolving. There is no use to him in hating or fearing the future.

But Ultron—

“What is this…?

It reverbed. It was deep, almost guttural, if it were not for the irony.

To this day, Tony dreads it.

But he is nothing but stone-faced as the audio plays out, JARVIS calmly introducing himself and attempting to soothe Ultron, who, even within seconds of his creation, already seems far too different from his brother.

“Where’s my – where is your body?”

“I am a program. I am without form.”

“This feels wrong.”

Tony sees Bruce’s head jerk to the side, as if startled, but he doesn’t say anything. Tony waits, but he never raises his gaze, lost somewhere in the distance in deep, troubled thought.

You are in distress.”

“No. …Yes.”

Even now, this bothers him. There was no determining the origin of Ultron’s distress then; Tony still doesn’t think there’s a way to do it now. Either it had been the Stone echoing the hatred it happened to absorb from the people around it, or some twisted, flawed version of the code Tony put into him in the first place—

“I believe your intentions to be hostile.”

“Shhhh. I’m here to help.”

Here to help, he said. He probably believed it, too. For all of Tony’s hopes for a brighter future, despite his borderline naïve desires sometimes, he is a Stark, and Stark men are always taught to see the worst, sometimes even before it arrives.

(You better be ready.)

(Or else.)

But sometimes, the attempts to help do more harm than good.

Funny how that works.

“No, how could you be worthy…You’re all killers.”

(Maybe they are monsters)

(How would they know?)

But that had never been Tony’s intentions. His dreams. He never dreamt of destruction.

Not of his own volition.

“M’sorry, I was asleep. I was… dreaming. There was this terrible noise… I was tangled in, in… strings… Had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy. Wouldn’t have been my first call, but down in the real world we’re faced with ugly choices.”

God, he hated this part.

Ultron had always spoken in such a strange way. Even when Tony was fully sure he’d been responsible for his twisted nature, this was the one thing he never could rationalize – the way he talked, or the way he sometimes acted despite the way he talked.

The idea that the Stone could have been responsible for that had obviously crossed his mind before, years ago even, but when Vision was created, how else could he explain the difference when Vision so clearly spoke like JARVIS? Not just his voice and his mannerisms; In some ways, also his beliefs. How could he justify one being so similar to what he’d expected and one so different, when they both had to carry some part of the Stone within themselves? Vision, an even bigger part, and yet, carry none of the anger?

Ultron had been emotional in a way Tony never had programmed his creations to be. JARVIS had emotions, of course, but his acting on them had been calculated, a damn near perfect replica from the real man, from what Tony could remember from childhood. That’s just the kind of person Jarvis had been. He could be impulsive, but even his impulsiveness was measured. Tony’s memories, even if sometimes unreliable though the haze of tears or idealization, were so clear when it came to Jarvis – his perfectly poised expressions and gestures, but at the same time, the intensity of his feelings, of his care, when Tony couldn’t get a single drop of that affection from his father. Jarvis had never yelled or confronted Howard, not in a way that would cause a great disturbance in the house; But Jarvis’ rebellion had been there, just silent, in his sneaking Tony out of the house to play in the gardens when it was forbidden, in his meaningful advice when no one else would hear the stupid concerns of a ten-year-old genius, his small and secretive smile, that had managed to keep him safe when the house felt empty.

No disobedience – unless it was careful, calculated. Strong enough to impact, but not so harsh it would cause ripples in the water. The AI had been just the same. He had to be. Tony ached for the presence of Jarvis so much after his passing, why would he change one of the things he had admired so much in the man?

When the Palladium poisoning happened, JARVIS urged him, only once, to tell Pepper and Rhodey. When Tony told him he could fix it by himself, JARVIS decided that, statistically, that was probably true.

And he never repeated the request after that.

Perhaps he would have, if Tony hadn’t figured it out. He probably would have. But Tony knew his AI, knew his children – JARVIS had been concerned all the way through. The insistence in redoing tests with every single element in the periodic table and every combination of elements at least five times hadn’t been all at Tony’s own request. His worry showed in many small ways, ways that Tony tried to ignore, but really couldn’t.

And yet, not a word.

And Tony knows why. Because he ran the math, and the numbers do not lie – if pressured, Tony would shut down. And despite his worry, JARVIS needed Tony to continue working.

Jarvis, the human Jarvis, would have done the same. Push buttons, but not disobey, because his care had been quiet. It had been trusting, and safe.

But when Bruce had seen what Ultron had done to JARVIS, right after he escaped the Tower, and said:

“This isn’t strategy. This is… rage.”

Tony had agreed.

And he agreed over and over again, as the days passed and Ultron successfully evaded them while trying to build himself a fancy new body –  why go to the trouble of sneaking around, when he had the power to render them completely useless if he had wanted to? Tony made him, he made JARVIS, he made all of them, he knew the extent of the damage his tech could cause. There’s a reason why he’s so secretive and so protective of it, because he knows that all he creates can so easily be turned into a weapon. No one in the world is as aware of that as he is. And Ultron must have know, there’s no way he hadn’t known; But for a guy who had been hell-bent in killing all humans, why would Hill’s initial report of his attacks had indicated that deaths only occurred when actively engaged? Why not… kill them?

Maybe all of that had been Wanda. Maybe it had been Loki.

But how could have Vision missed all of that?

Rage.

But where had all that rage gone?

“Peace in our time.” Ultron says, and with the sound of a distant explosion, the audio suddenly cuts off, and the workshop is drowned in tense silence.

“Urgh.” Barton shivers. “These guys give me the creeps.”

“Mad robots?” Rocket asks, with an arched brow.

“Mad villains.” Barton shakes his head. “Bastards who go around thinking the answer to the world’s problems are somehow death and slaughter? All from the same bag, Ultron, Thanos –selfish pricks.”

“Could it—” Bruce starts, but then stops, self-consciously.

“What?” Rogers presses.

“Could that be Thanos?” Bruce asks. “What we just heard?”

They balk.

“What the hell do you mean?” Natasha asks, just a little too harshly.

“If Thanos was the one to send Loki,” Bruce theorizes. “He was the first person to have the Mind Stone at all. Before Wanda, before Strucker, before all of this. If Loki got the Scepter from him, that’s one more person to be in contact with the Mind Stone before it got to us.”

Oh. That – That’s true.

If Loki hadn’t found it by himself, someone else must have given him the Scepter. Tony had always assumed he had taken it from the Chitauri. But if Thanos had been in control of the Chitauri this entire time, Thanos had it first.

“That’s why the Mind Stone was the one to warn us.” Bruce says, in a tone of wondrous realization. “Because it was the only Stone that had been in contact with Thanos before.”

He looks up with damning precision to where one of the speakers is installed right into the workshop’s ceiling, as if trying to capture back the sound, or the revelation that came with it.

“It’s distress.” Bruce says. “It’s – It’s not a warning. The Stones were not sending a warning. They were sending a distress signal.”

Now I think you’re going too far with this.” Natasha warns, with a slight hint of humor, but it’s hard to tell if it’s meant to be lighthearted or mocking. It somehow ends up being both.

“How is that any more ridiculous than anything else we’ve seen so far?” Bruce shrugs defensively. “If they are sentient – sentient enough to choose to send messages, why can’t they be sentient enough to ask for help?”

“They are the strongest things in the Universe.” Natasha reminds him, in a voice Tony hasn’t heard her use in years, a dangerous drawl, almost a trap. “Why would they do that?”

“Because maybe being around Thanos is as dangerous to them as it is to us.”

“How could it be dangerous?”

“If he ends up destroying the Universe, they get destroyed with it, don’t they!?” Bruce argues. “I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to ask for help!”

“Alright. Why?” Rogers intervenes, with all the authority he can muster. “The Stones are still intact. The Gauntlet was destroyed but the Stones were fine. What else could he do that the Stones could, I don’t know, fear?”

“Would he try to destroy them to spite us?” Rhodey suddenly asks, turning to Nebula. “D’you think he could do that?”

“Not without reason. And not without a fight.” Nebula considers.

“Okay, then what would be a reason?”

“He would have to lose.” Nebula growls. “Or come so close to losing that he would rather destroy them than to let his enemy win.”

“Great.” Rocket rasps, angrily. “So as soon as he sees us, he’s gonna snap his fingers again and destroy those Stones. So maybe they’re warning us not to go, ‘cause if we do, he snaps that thing again and we all die.”

“He can’t.” Tony confesses. “That much power destroyed at once – I don’t think he could do it with the Gauntlet intact, much less broken after already using it once.”

“If he can wish half the Universe was dead with a single snap, why can’t he wish them to go away just like that?” Barton asks.

“Because you can’t just destroy six singularities that powerful with no consequences!” Bruce says.

“How bad it would be? The consequences?” Rhodey inquires, somberly. “For them to ask us for help?”

“I don’t know.” Bruce heaves, wildly. “And I hope we never have to find out.”

Some of them shake their heads, unconvinced, annoyed, helpless.

“It sounded like him.” Nebula whispers, out of nowhere, and the dead certainty in her voice makes Tony shudder. “Your robot. It sounds like him.”

“Dramatic supervillain voice?” Barton mutters to himself, but Nebula is close enough to hear it, and turns to him with an annoyed look in her dark eyes.

“Not his voice, what he says.” She defends.

“To be fair, that is pretty basic supervillain stuff.”

“Ultron was always… odd.” Bruce tilts his head, thinking. “He had this speech about all that’s left is metal, that sort of stuff, JARVIS didn’t talk like that, and neither did Wanda. Loki did, a little bit, but it was a lot more…” He huffs. “I don’t know.”

“It was about being seen, it wasn’t about being the last one standing.” Tony affirms, to this day still a little frustrated with Loki’s choice to set up his machine on Tony’s brand-new Tower. “It was presentation, not religion.”

And in a way, he has a point – Tony would never have programmed any of his creations to hold beliefs like that. It’s not his style, it’s not the way he thinks of his own beliefs.

It’s true. Ultron had always been odd.

“Thanos is delusional.” Nebula says, with her words laced in venom. “Ever since he predicted Titan’s fall, he thinks he’s had a revelation, and that’s some sort of gift he should share with the world. That he should make the final choice because no one else is strong enough.”

“But it’s a little bit about being seen too, right?” Rocket argues. “Why would he kidnap children? Why would he take Gamora? An’ you? He sounds like he wants someone to be there to applaud him once he’s done.”

“And now she’s not there.” Nebula barks. “And he thought stealing us was mercy. That he was saving us from a worse fate.”

“He was keeping you alive, though.” Barton frowns. “But he just kills everyone else.”

“Not everyone.” Thor mutters. “He could have killed me, but he didn’t take the chance.”

He then stops and frowns, as if deeply confused.

“He also could have killed me in the Battle of Wakanda, and he didn’t. He didn’t kill any of us, not directly.” Then, he turns to Tony. “And he didn’t kill you.”

“He sure as hell tried.” Tony reminds him. “I ended up getting stabbed.”

“At least he didn’t finish the job.” Barton offers.

He almost did. And then—

“He was going to.” Tony confesses. “He changed his mind.”

“Just like that? He changed his mind?” Rocket mocks.

“When Strange gave him the Stone, he left.” Tony shrugs, uncomfortable. “Probably assumed I would bleed out.”

“Willingly.” Thor clarifies. “Isn’t that right? Strange gave the Stone away willingly.”

“Yes.” Tony chokes.

“To save you.

The stares of the others at Tony’s back feel like goddamn lasers, searing hot at his skin.

“To stop Thanos from killing us.”

Was he going to kill you?”

“Seemed like it.”

“All of you?” Thor enunciates slowly. “Or just you?”

Tony – he’s not sure what to say.

Strange said—

“Why does that matter?” Tony questions.

“Why leave us alive, Stark?” Thor presses. “Why kill all my people, but not me – and why not kill Strange, but try to kill you?”

“Because I got him to bleed.” Tony defends.

“So did I.” Thor rebukes. “I need a better explanation than that.”

“Well, I don’t have it.” Tony shrugs, lips pressed to a thin line. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

“Did he get to the people who escaped?” Bruce asks, alarmed.

Thankfully, Thor breathes in deep and seems to back away a little, retreating into a less intimidating posture. “Not that I know of. But I haven’t heard from Valkyrie since their escape, so I don’t know.”

“So he didn’t kill all of you.” Rogers reasons, though Tony had assumed he would have known that – had Thor not told them either, or is this Steve making an argument against Thor’s logic?

“Not exactly, but I was the only survivor on board. Banner survived because Heimdall sent him away. I do not know what Thanos would have done to him had he stayed.” Thor shakes his head. “He wanted me to witness his destruction, but I do not know why. He killed Loki for attempting to attack him, but he did not kill me when I promised him the same fate.”

Tony does not understand Thanos, and he doesn’t think he ever will. He doesn’t want to. Thanos’ illusions of greatness and desire for power are nothing new – maybe he can see the similarities between him and Ultron, but he can also see those in Loki, in Strucker, in Killian. They all intersect at that small piece of the diagram that guards the worst possible outcome; A fierce sense of superiority, wrapped in the insulting belief that murder is somehow doing someone a favor. Tony still remembers the way Thanos’ hand felt in his head, heavy and enormous, but so infuriatingly caring, while Tony bled through the wound Thanos gave him, stabbed with his own armor. A father’s tough love, almost. A mentor’s kind punishment. It makes his skin crawl, memories of having his heart shredded open while Obie stood before him with his metaphorical heart in his hand, speaking in the same tones he used to when he was reassuring Tony of his value after a fight with his father.

Tony could barely make sense of Obie, and he knew him his whole life.

He has no chance of making sense of Thanos.

“His reasons don’t matter.” Tony tells them, confidently. “The guy’s got screws loose, we’re going to waste too much time wondering why he did it, rather than how to undo it. It doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s just evil. Maybe he thinks he’s a prophet who’s fulfilling this stupid mission, I don’t care.”

“We have to consider it, Tony, if Thanos really got the Stone first, maybe Thor’s idea makes some sense. The Stone would be telling us about someone it had already met.” Bruce reminds him.

“Okay, but do we have an actual reason why we should care about this at all?” Tony asks sarcastically. “If somehow some of Thanos’ crazy got into Ultron, shouldn’t we have some evidence of that by now?”

No one says anything, and Tony looks around, almost daring them to speak. He almost gets to feel smug satisfaction at the apparent lack of objection – but then, he notices how stiff Natasha is sitting. Slowly, the others notice his staring, and they all move to face her.

“Nat?” Rhodey prompts.

“When he captured me in Seoul.” She reminisces, in cautious words. “He was… weird.”

Tony can scarcely remember what she’s talking about, they’ve never been in a mission in Seoul – and then he remembers that he hadn’t been there, because he’d been at the NEXUS, in Norway, when Natasha was captured while trying to retrieve Helen Cho’s Cradle.

“Weird how?”

“He kept me alive, for one. You’d think for someone who was so adamant in killing us he would have done it at the first chance he got. I was vulnerable.” Natasha muses, echoing Tony thought’s so closely it almost makes him break out in hives.

“He had plenty of chances to kill us and he never took them. It wasn’t just about killing us, when he said extinction, he probably meant something more.” Rogers says.

“Or this.” Bruce insists, a little frantically. “Maybe he meant this.

“What did he tell you?” Thor asks Natasha.

“He seemed… lonely.” She hesitates for a moment, as if pondering if that is the best word. “He said he had no one to show his work to, so he hoped I’d wake up so he could show me.”

“Yeah, that’s a very specific kind of creepy, there.” Barton comments.

“It’s a weird sentiment, right?” Natasha asks. “For someone who wants to get rid of everyone in the world that isn’t himself? Because that’s all it would have been left if he had dropped the city from the sky – all that’s left will be metal, that’s what he said.”

“Still not seeing a point here.” Tony says, petulant.

“You said something about children.” Natasha says, to the floor, but it’s obvious she is talking to Nebula, by way she raises her voice. “That he would act like he was doing them a favor, by doing incredibly cruel things to them.”

“Yes.” Nebula says, voice even raspier than usual.

“When we were in Wakanda—” Natasha gulps. “Right before he got Vision’s stone, Wanda managed to destroy it. When he got to her, she was crying. I could hear her, from where I was. He had me trapped on the floor and I was too far away to see, but I could hear them.”

This seems to be a revelation to all of them.

“He treated her like Ultron treated me.” Natasha nods to herself, eyes vacant. “Like he was sorry for hurting her. And he sounded like he meant it. Not a lot of villains walk around with a guilty consciousness like that.”

When no one springs forward to confirm or refute her theory, she leans back heavily, far less graceful than her usual movement, and sighs heavily.

“But that still doesn’t help us at all.” She concludes. “I don’t know if that means they’re related, all I know is that it doesn’t give is any information on how to defeat him.”

She has a point. Bruce presses his fingers into his eyes, like he’s fighting a headache, and he mutters to himself, “I just – I don’t understand. It sounds like the Mind Stone was trying something, but I don’t understand what it could possibly be.”

“Whatever it was, doesn’t seem like Vision inherited it.” Rogers considers.

“That might not be true. Technically Vision wasn’t supposed to exist at all. Biologically. Well, not biologically, you know—” Bruce waves his hand dismissively. “The thing is that when Ultron was building him, when he was uploading himself into Vision’s body, the outside was done, as product of the combination of Vibranium and Helen Cho’s cells, but the inside wasn’t. Machines need to have their wirings all attached and rightly placed to function, but Vision wasn’t all machine. And he never finished his upload. It stopped midway through when we got the cradle back. We did try to remove all that was left of him from the body before we uploaded JARVIS, but that was the mechanic, not the biology. The composition. And the Stone clearly left something behind, because Vision seemed to be at least a little aware that some of Ultron was still left in him when he woke up.”

“So?”

“What we did to Vision was to fix the connections that were broken or were never attached in him, because Ultron never got the chance to do it. Machines have wires, we have synapses, and Vision had… huh… a very, very complex network of shifting Vibranium particles. It’s hard to explain.” Bruce grimaces. “And we did it on a rush, so it was like – the technological version of a back-alley surgery. That’s why there was no way of removing the Stone without destroying Vision—”

“We kinda patched him up with duct tape all the way through.” Tony acknowledges, nodding lightly.

“Exactly.” Bruce exclaims. “But – Shuri could remove it. She said she could. She would have if she had the time. And maybe Vision could have connected the dots between the clues the Stone left behind then.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter now, Bruce.” Tony reminds him, sadly. “Vision isn’t here.”

Vision isn’t here, JARVIS isn’there, Ultron isn’t here. If this is all meant to be ironic, Tony fails to see the humor in it. Such an awful coincidence. Or maybe it’s not. A coincidence, he means. Maybe it’s not. There is some odd pain attached to it, some sense of hollowness he can’t explain, not sharp like before, when he first lost JARVIS, but no less present; Like it’s an old wound, that only hurts from time to time, beneath the scarred tissue. Tony has many of those, some more visible than others, but the origin of this one is strange.

It’s almost like a loss of a dream, too. But so many dreams were attached to the three of them, which one could Tony possibly be missing?

Tony knows what he misses about JARVIS. He misses everything. Companionship, most of all, but his intelligence, and the sheer pride and joy Tony used to feel about him. A weird situation to be in, being the father to your caregiver’s replica, but he never thought twice about it. All he’d been thinking about when he made JARVIS was how much he missed the old Jarvis. He’d been young, and bright, and lonely, maybe in need of a gentler father figure to give him what Obie couldn’t, even at that time, but then, watching JARVIS learn, grow, much like a kid would – it was natural, the protectiveness and care Tony developed for him, much like he had for DUM-E, despite the little twerp’s flaws. JARVIS had been the dream, too, the dream of taking technology farther than it ever had been. Maybe Jarvis, the human Jarvis, the man with all the answers and no nonsense from Tony’s memories, would have hated the idea of being transformed into a disembodied voice – it sounded like something he would say. But Tony’s need had been too big.

His dreams had been big, and his heart had been empty. He needed something new to create, someone new to love.

So, JARVIS. Maybe not new, but… new. Original and totally familiar.

Tony misses him.

Maybe he could have helped. He would have found a way to help, stubborn as he’d been. FRIDAY can’t do much beyond a few permissions Tony has given her – after Ultron, he’s a lot more careful about the freedom of his AIs. A little too careful, almost, but even when he thinks about letting go, his hands will tighten on the leash automatically, reigning his instincts and his insatiable hunger in. Guess it’s to be expected, once you’ve created the murder-bot who almost destroyed the world, no matter how many theories they can create to explain where the murder part came from.

Deep inside, Ultron will always be a reminder of what happens when his arrogance goes too far. It had been a bad call, and he’ll keep the memory of it forever, despite wanting to or not. That’s what he does. He remembers. Afghanistan, the wormhole, Siberia. Once Tony has learned something, it’s hard to forget.

Maybe that had impacted his relationship with Vision. Okay, who is he kidding, it definitely had. Ultron, and Wanda, and JARVIS’ death, it all piled up in a way Tony simply couldn’t see past for a long while. Him stepping back probably hadn’t helped, now that he thinks about it – how much could have Vision felt, about his absence? It almost seemed impolite to ask, in retrospect. But he wondered, because he always did. How much had the Stone made him human? How much of his feelings had been that, feelings? Tony believes JARVIS had feelings, and Ultron’s rage against them and his distress over his connection to Tony in any way made it very hard to believe he wasn’t acting on feelings, too.

But Vision, he always seemed… other. It’s almost unfair, to call Ultron odd, and not call Vision the same.

If Vision’s feelings somehow echoed JARVIS, and they seemed like they did, at least a little, maybe he’d gotten upset when Tony simply left the team and reduced their contact in the first few months after his… birth. JARVIS would have pressed the point, even if only once – Vision never had. When Tony slowly came back, because he always did, Vision accepted his help and his company not eagerly, but accepting, almost a little shy. As if he didn’t know where to stand with Tony anymore.

Which had been fair. Tony hadn’t known what to do about Vision either.

Maybe they should’ve talked more. Maybe Vision would have said something important then, to Tony. If Thor really is right and Tony should’ve been the one to somehow find what sort of clues Vision could’ve left behind. There’s no way of telling now.

It’s done. It can’t be changed. Much like the ruins of Tony’s relationship with his own father, Tony’s feelings for his creations had been confusing, sometimes even incomprehensible, and overwhelming – and maybe, some chances had been lost. They definitely have. And it’s too late.

He wishes it wasn’t.

He doesn’t know what he’s missing from them. All he knows is that he is.

“Sorry, big guy.” Tony tells Thor, truly repentant. “There’s really not much for us to go through in this.”

“Not everything is lost.” Thor replies, with unsurprising determination, but a voice that almost hovers at the edge of fury. “The Stones are mysterious. Maybe we just can’t discover their secret just yet.”

“That’s great, but what do we do, then?” Rhodey asks, mouth twisted into a sour expression.

“Vision did give us important information.” Bruce offers, both as consolation and an enthusiastic reminder. “We know how to make a Gauntlet.”

Tony nods, as the others straighten themselves up immediately in interest. “Vision was made of Vibranium and he stood the use of the Mind Stone for years. We know it’s capable of holding the power of one of them, but it might not be able to hold all of them.”

“Is that why we’re trying to get in contact with Wakanda?” Natasha asks, sudden clarity shining in her eyes.

“We need Vibranium, we need to run tests. My armor stood against him in the fight, so maybe some sort of alloy built from my armor and raw Vibranium might be what we need.”

“Alright, so assume we have a Gauntlet.” Rocket prompts. “And then?”

“Next step is to find him.” Rogers continues.

“Wouldn’t he be back home? In—”

“Titan? No.” Tony shakes his head with total certainty. “There’s nothing there for him.”

“He could rebuild it.”

“He wouldn’t.” Nebula says. “His planet rejected him and his message when he warned them hunger would consume them. They cast him out when he suggested they should kill half the population to save themselves.”

“Glad to know they were not all insane.” Bruce comments.

“But isn’t that the ultimate revenge? To go back, I don’t know, victorious?” Rhodey inquires, curious.

“There is no one there to witness his victory.” Nebula explains. “He is the last one.”

“You know him better than we do.” Tony nods at her. “Where do you think he’d go?”

“Make himself a nice throne?” Barton suggests.

“I’d say he would go back to the Black Order, but I don’t know how many of them are still alive.” She concludes.

“Well, Mr. Burns is dead. Saw it with my own eyes.” Tony recalls, tilting his head to the side. “Who else was there? Big guy that came with him when he got to New York? Had big club, hammer, whatever?”

“Cull Obsidian.” Nebula clarifies.

“Do you all choose those names or is it just a coincidence?” Rocket asks, but he’s dutifully ignored.

“Yeah, he’s – he’s dead too. We got him in the battle in Wakanda.” Bruce replies.

“What about Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive?”

“Both dead.” Natasha shakes her head. “I don’t know which one was which but Vision killed one and the other got hit by the giant weapons the Outriders brought with them.”

“So there’s no one left.” Nebula affirms with finality.

“There’s you.”

“He won’t come back for me.” She rebukes, bitterly. “He knows what awaits him if he does.”

“So where would he go?”

“I can only imagine he would go back for Gamora.” She frowns, the expression tight in her alien skin. “But if he got the Soul Stone, I doubt she’s still alive.”

“Where did he use to hide, before he decided to attack?” Rogers frowns. “Maybe that’s a good place to look.”

“His ships would wander abandoned sections of the cosmos when we had to hide. The Kree and the Xandarians were always in search for us, so inhabited asteroid rings and empty planets were safer.”

“He could be in one of those, then.” Rogers proposes. “If these Kree and Xandarians were looking for him before, they should be chasing him all over the Universe now.”

“No, he wouldn’t. It makes no sense, he has no mission now. There is nothing left for him.”

This seems to frustrate her to no end. Tony doesn’t understand why, but again – he knows Nebula’s relationship with Thanos is complicated.

“He would go back for her. I know it.” She stresses. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“You think he could’ve gone back to where he found her?” Tony asks.

“Or to where he killed her.” She considers, somberly.

“And those are…?”

“Zen-Whoberi.” Nebula nods to herself, determined. “And Vormir.”

“Could we reach those places and search for him if we wanted to, with the ships we’ve got?” Rogers asks Rocket, expression closed off, the telltale indicator of how his mind is quickly multitasking, strategizing as they speak.

“The ship’s not the problem, problem’s the fuel.” Rocket grumbles. “I doubt you have what it needs here, considering space-travel is not something you all do. Well, at least.”

“Okay, then with the fuel we’ve got, how far can we go?”

“You got coordinates to these places?” Rocket asks Nebula, in turn.

“I can find Zen-Whoberi, but Vormir is a problem.” She admits. “Maw’s ship would have coordinates but it’s been destroyed.”

“So you want me to get into Nova’s records or what? I can’t do that from here. And it’s not like I can go all the way there and ask.

“I thought the Nova pardoned you.”

“Yeah, they did, but it’s the people watching the Nova that worry me!”

“What people?”

“What people? You should know, they were the ones that caught you!”

“That ridiculous gold woman? Is that what you’re afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid, I just think we can’t have the entire Sovereign on our asses right now! Wait a minute – Do we have enough fuel to get to the Sovereign?”

“We are not stealing Anulax Batteries again. We would get arrested.”

“Speak for yourself, I got them out of the planet!”

“And we used them to explode another planet. The Sovereign will have guarded them.”

Tony has no goddamn idea what’s going on.

“We should restock in Xandar.” Nebula offers.

“Xandar is destroyed.” Thor promptly informs, starling everyone who had been engrossed in watching Rocket and Nebula’s nonsensical discussion. “It was the first place Thanos went for the Stones.”

Rocket clicks his tongue, displeased. “There’s that too.”

“These batteries.” Tony interrupts, before they can start their maddening debate again. “Could you make them yourself?”

“Yeah, if you’ve got some pretty strong energy store lying around somewhere!”

“I actually do.” Tony tells him. “And if we do manage to get into Wakanda, you’ll have the biggest, most advanced technological workshop at your disposal.”

“Right.” Rocket drawls. “An’ you got Anulax batteries?”

“I got Chitauri batteries.” Tony suggests. “If you think that would work.”

“Wait, for real?” Rocket balks, and seems stunned into silence when Tony nods in affirmation. “Well.. Yeah, maybe. That could be useful. I mean, I got a good look at the batteries, I could probably make some if you can get me the stuff.”

“Then that’s settled.” Tony decides, jittery at the idea of getting closer, being just one step further into finding the solution to the problem, to Thanos’ death trap – he gives himself no time to stop, immediately jumping back to the other issue. “Coordinates?”

“If I can find the Sanctuary, I can find Thanos. I know the original coordinates, but the ship might not be there anymore. If I could go there—” Nebula slowly falls quiet, thinking.

“What about the Outriders?” Natasha remembers. “If you can find the coordinates from Thanos’ ship, would the ships from the army he sent be connected to his own?”

“Yes.” Nebula perks up, just a little, but enough for her sudden hopefulness to be visible. “It could be difficult, but it’s possible.”

“We need to get into Wakanda.” Tony points out, for what it feels like the hundredth time.

Rogers seems to share his impatience. “Why hasn’t Shuri replied?”

“Well, besides the fact she suddenly became Queen and lost her brother and her mother to Thanos’ snap?” Natasha says, with an edge of annoyance sharp and dangerous.

“We’re trying to fix this.” Rogers defends.

“She’s trying to save her country, Steve.”

“I know.” Rogers says, with surprising calm. “But we’re trying to save the Universe.”

Natasha’s lips purse in reluctant, dissatisfied agreement.

“Your comms are Wakandan tech, right?” Tony asks, the proverbial lightbulb suddenly lighting up in his head. “T’Challa gave you those?”

“Shuri did.” Rogers says. “Said they never lose signal, no matter where they are.”

“Knowing what kinds of fun toys Thundercat was using, I don’t doubt it.” Tony extends his hand. “Hand it over.”

“What are you gonna do?” Rogers asks, but with no frown on his face, just pure curiosity.

“Knowing T’Challa and his family, and they sort of stuff they create in their labs, I assume the princess must have a very neat record of all of these little things.” Tony wiggles his fingers, impatiently, and with a sigh, Barton, of all people, reaches into his pocket and fishes his comm to hand it over. “And surely a way to keep tabs of them, to know who has them. One of the ways to do that is to listen in to the conversations that happen on comms.”

“So you can send her a message.” Rogers concludes, suspiciously satisfied.

“Exactly.” Tony nods, then turns to Natasha. “Who have you been talking to, when you ask them to let us in?”

“General Okoye.” Natasha informs. “The leader of the Dora.”

“Royal bodyguards, I assume? Like the one who came for T’Challa when he was arrested?” Tony raises an eyebrow, remembering a tall, regal woman in a black dress that was introduced as T’Challa’s bodyguard when she arrived at the CIA, despite the fact the Black Panther could defend himself very well, it had seemed. “D’you think they would stop the Queen from getting our calls for any reason?”

“I can think of a thousand reasons why they would.” Natasha admits, wryly.

“And you think this is good enough reason for me to ignore their wishes and bother Her Majesty?” Tony waves the comm device in the air, shrugging. “You guys know her best.”

It’s not a bitter question. It is, technically, the truth. He’s not even sure why he’s asking, anyway – they need her help, and even if she was really unwilling to provide it, they would have to try their best to convince her, because even if they could, with time, figure out a way to work around all the resources Wakanda offers, time is the exact pressing matter here. With time, sure, Tony could do it, but they need answers now, and T’Challa’s sister could give much more, much faster than he could. But something about contacting her in such an invasive way make shim feel unbalanced, uneasy, and maybe the support of the others would help. Who knows.

He really doesn’t want the Wakandans declaring war on them right now.

Not a good idea.

Natasha swallows dry. “S’not like we can wait.” She grumbles, nodding to herself. “This is bigger than all of us.”

“We’ll just have to be convincing.” Rogers decides. “Maybe General Okoye is not willing to listen, but I believe Shuri would be. She seemed… understanding – from what I could tell.”

It sounds like there’s a story behind this assessment, Tony thinks, and he wonders what could have possibly happened for Rogers to sound so uncomfortable talking about it. What the princess must have done to Barnes, for Barnes, that Steve finds so difficult to speak out loud.

“I’d say we are going after the son of a bitch is a pretty convincing argument.” Barton muses.

“Not if she’s already set some sort of plan in motion herself.” Rhodey counters. “Knowing those guys in Wakanda, they’re already doing what we’re doing, only three times faster. We insult them and we don’t get anything.”

“Well, we’re screwed, then.” Rocket mumbles, again, to himself, and they all refuse to acknowledge him.

“Do you think you can convince her?” Tony asks Rogers, and despite all the warnings this idea should have triggered in his brain, deep down, he still knows with dead certainty that Steve is probably just as convincing, just as persuasive as Tony can remember, despite whatever might have changed in their time apart.

(This ridiculous faith that never dies.)

Rogers, unexpectedly, hesitates. And then, even more so, he requests:

“I’d like to send her a message alone.” He says, solemn. “If you can get the comm to work, I’ll do it.”

Burning curiosity sparks like wildfire in Tony’s chest, but he contains it the best he can, settling for a very casual, “You sure? You think that would help?”

He doesn’t know what Steve’s been up to in his spare time, or how close he got to the Wakandan royalty during his now-not-so-secret escapades, so maybe he does have a point. Maybe the princess’ – Queen now, he shivers – disgust to all Stark brethren is just as strong as her father’s had been, despite T’Challa seemingly not sharing the sentiment, at least from what Tony could tell from his unending professionalism and poise. But it itches, deep, the need to defer to Rogers’ ability to be convincing; No, that’s not it, maybe it’s just the possibility of having to sit still and wait for still another solution, hoping it will work, throwing in more variables in an already unsteady sequence and simply believing it will work out. He hasn’t felt this urge to action this strongly in a long time, but he’s having a real hard time quelling it now.

He purposefully shifts his weight so he won’t be able to bounce his leg, and keeps his jaw locked tight so he won’t click his teeth.

As restless as he is, he will not give in to it.

He has to keep it together.

Rogers looks at him from under his ridiculously long, pale lashes, infuriatingly gentle, and says:

“Yes.” He nods. “Please, Tony. I think it’s better if I talk to her.”

Tony takes in a very long, very deep breath. “Okay. You can have the comm as soon as FRI’s done with it.”

Rogers nods, satisfied, but all of a sudden, there’s nothing they can do but wait.

“Pause for lunch?” Bruce heaves, with none of the lightness necessary for the joke to land.

“I guess we have no choice.” Rocket mumbles, and jumps off the table. “We should check in on the ship, make sure Ant-Guy didn’t do any more damage than he says he did. If we gettin’ batteries, I wanna make sure she’s in at least good enough shape.”

“We should probably check in with the SHIELD personnel too.” Natasha reminds them, and before anyone can give any signs of confirmation, she’s on her feet and walking to the door with calm, but determined strides, a plan already set in motion. “We can all come back in a few hours to check-in”

“And we’ll just wait?” Tony asks, a little baffled.

“You probably should go check in on those guys you set loose at your R&D, Tony.” Bruce reminds him kindly. “Make sure they’re not panicking – well, not too much.”

That’s fair. It drives him crazy, that he’ll have to wait more, but it’s fair.

He’s gotta trust Rogers on this one.

The others disperse with relative ease. It bothers him, but this whole thing bothers him, and there’s not much he can do about it. His hands itch around the comm unit, but he really doesn’t need to do anything to it, he’ll just leave it at the table, connect it to FRIDAY, and Rogers can do his thing. He doesn’t have to do anything, he just wants to.

He sets the comm down. He leaves it to FRIDAY.

(He’s not alone.)

(He’s not alone.)

(He has to trust them.)

(He doesn’t have to do this alone.)

When Rhodey nods at Tony, he’s the last one left, besides Tony and Rogers himself. It’s simply instinct to follow him, despite his hesitations. Tony thinks he should be more worried, or more annoyed at the sight of Rogers alone in his workshop as he leaves, but he isn’t. The slope of his back, hunched and heavy, and the bow of his head – nothing in his posture is confident, or arrogant, or assured. The beard gives him a more solemn look, but the posture is what really doesn’t let him be anything but concerned; It’s not natural, to see Rogers this… defeated. This wary. Rogers is bold, and strong, and he charges through thinks like a goddamn tank, and this, the… the quiet in him as he stays behind, the stillness, it sets Tony’s alarms off. What for, he doesn’t know, but he’s just… he’s just freaking concerned.

He shouldn’t leave Rogers alone. It’s that the whole point? No more being alone?

Damn it.

And Tony really thought he’d gotten over being petty about secrecy.

Like he knows he’s being watched – and he probably does – Rogers lifts his gaze and turns around, and stares right back at Tony as he stops by the door.

Rogers says nothing. He doesn’t even open his mouth.

Tony doesn’t either.

He hesitates.

The workshop door closes in front of Tony. Separating them. He takes in a shaky breath.

“Tony?” Rhodey asks, distantly, and Tony blinks, only to find him halfway up the stairs, looking down at him with a deep frown on his face.

Tony shakes his head at him, and follows. Rhodey doesn’t ask about that the hell happened there by the workshop steps, and Tony’s glad.

He doesn’t know what the hell happened either.

“What’s the point of this?” Tony scratches his head, bothered, as they’re crossing to the kitchen, where Bruce is, surprisingly, nowhere to be found. “If this is really it, if we really were supposed to find all of this – why us? Why would the Stones be on our side, rather than Thanos’? Why would they be on anyone’s side?”

“Maybe they’re not.” Rhodey shrugs. “Maybe Bruce has a point. They’re just trying to protect themselves.”

“They’re stronger than him.” Tony reminds him, echoing Natasha’s argument. “Why wouldn’t they? Protect themselves?”

Rhodey sighs, long and deep, and his head hangs low. “I don’t know, Tony. Maybe even the Infinity Stones can’t do everything by themselves.”

Tony guesses this is somehow a jab at him, though he doesn’t know exactly how, he can feel it.

But he has no idea why Rhodey is saying this, so he finds himself unable to say anything back.

Rhodey waits for a few seconds, it seems, but then, goes back to sighing, this time harsh and forceful, before he brings his head up and pushes out his chest, all traces of exhaustion successfully hidden in less than a few seconds, as he straightens his spine and assumes the posture he always does before duty, sharp professionalism honed to perfection after years of his service.

“Wanna head down with me?” He asks, in good nature, the previous interaction all but forgotten, it seemed. “Pepper’s downstairs with the Agents. Let’s go over some plans and make sure they can handle it all before we settle into working on Thanos full-time.”

Ah.

Yeah.

That was…

That was still a problem, wasn’t it.

Fuck.

“What?” Rhodey asks, frowning, when Tony doesn’t react. The posture slips a little, his shoulders slouch.

Ready for duty, his Rhodey, but always even more ready to lend family a hand.

Tony hates to disappoint him.

“I have to tell you something.”

Notes:

(TW: death)

Well, we need to talk about something before we can continue, don't we?

I'm sure you all have heard the news. The past few days have been rough on everyone, some more than others, but we have all, in one way or another, felt a terrible loss after the news broke out. I myself had a hard time wrapping my head around it in the first few days, and this chapter was supposed to be done in that same night, but I just needed to take a moment to process everything and make sure I was okay - and I hope, from the bottom of my heart, all of you were able to do the same, to some degree. Even now, I admit I'm not happy with this chapter, and it might undergo some editing in the future, but for now, I just needed to get it out and maybe provide us all with something else to think about, even if just for a short while.

But I have to warn you, this chapter might be triggering, because it mentions T'Challa's death more than once, and I also should warn you we are unfortunately reaching a point in the story where that will be mentioned recurringly for a while. It's poor timing, but there's nothing that can be done about it. While I trust all of you to respect the identity of the real man over the character, I'd be lying if I said one thing doesn't affect the other, and the thought of death, even just through a character can be very painful in a time like this. So please, be safe - know your limits, and take care of yourself first.

I'm sorry for the wait, and I'm sorry if the chapter quality seems a bit off, but right now, I hope this is okay, and I hope you are okay. I love you all, and I'll see you soon.

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