Earth-199999: March 2018
Tony felt absolutely numb as he watched Thanos disappear from Titan.
He should be standing up. Trying to gather everyone once more, ready for another try, ready to fight again. He was an Avenger, wasn't he? The Avengers never gave up. They were in charge of saving the worldUniverse. That was their job.
But he couldn't muster the strength. All of his fear, all of his anxiety it was just... gone.
They had lost.
He wanted to laugh, but there was nothing funny about what had just happened.
For six years, Tony Stark had known what was coming. For six years he had tried to rally Earth, to ready everyone for what he knew was coming. For six years he had played Cassandra, and no one had heard him. No one had listened to him, no one had believed him.
But he was right. He had been right all along, but he felt no pleasure at the knowledge.
He shouldn't despair; the Avengers were trying to protect Vision, and Thor was en route to Earth with a 'Thanos killing weapon', according to Quill. He shouldn't give up already, he should trust in the Avengers.
But he couldn't. Because Thanos controlled five out of six of the aspects of the Universe, he controlled Time itself. He controlled Power. Reality. Space. Soul.
And Earth had Vision with a Mind stone he had never known exactly what ro do with.
Even if the Avengers managed to destroy the Mind stone - and that was a big if - he had spoken to Strange as they were journeying towards Titan. The mess in Hong Kong, with the portal and the destruction that, between a blink and another had undone itself was apparently his doing.
Which meant that if Strange could do that with an entire city block - literally bring people back to life - a rock of immense power that wouldn't destroy that easily would be a piece of cake for Thanos to turn time on.
Thanos had destroyed Thor's people while he was carrying the Power Stone alone, a race of perceived gods.
He had wiped the floor with them when he had four stones.
Now he controlled five, and unless Vibranium had some anti Infinity Stones properties, Thanos was going against a warrior army with vibranium weapons, several enhanced humans, two supersoldiers, an Asgardian he had already beat before, two baseline military trained humans outfitted with Stark Tech, a Russian spy, a powerful but untrained witch and an android with an Infinity Stone in his forehead.
Who was going to win? asked a voice that sounded suspiciously like Harley's. A literal army fighting for their lives or a purple man with five shiny space rocks?
"Tony," came a voice, and Tony slowly blinked back to awareness. His ears were tingling, and grey eyes were staring at him, wide and slightly panicked. "Are you with me? You need to listen to me."
His hands were on each of Tony's cheek, and were trembling ever so slightly. Tony fought to find the anger he should feel at this man who gave up humanity for him.
But all he felt was exhaustion. "Why would you do that? You promised... you promised."
Strange's thumb caressed his cheek with a gentleness that Tony felt didn't belong there. They were basically - ah! - strangers, but seeing the way he held him, you'd think otherwise.
"I lied," told him the other man, and there was heartbreak in his eyes. Pain. "When I said we won in one future, I lied." Tony's breath caught in his throat as Strange offered him a bittersweet smile. "We don't win. We didn't have enough time."
Tony pulled back slightly, and Strange's hands left his cheeks. He looked at where Peter was standing a little apart from them, not listening in but clearly wanting to. The Guardians seemed frozen in their defeat and the blue android/alien who had informed Quill of the Gamora chick's death was standing a little apart from them, staring at nothing.
He looked back at Strange. "We're doomed," he said, and still he felt... nothing.
If he pushed more he could sense some sort of grief in himself but other than that? He felt nothing.
"We didn't have enough time," emphasised Strange. "This Universe is doomed. Thanos will snap his fingers. And then he will destroy the Infinity Stones so that no one would be able to undo what he has done."
Tony looked at him sharply. "If the stones that represent the aspects that govern our Universe are gone..."
"Then our Universe will cease to exist," finished Strange. "But not the Multiverse."
He made a gesture with his hands, and a mandala much more complex than the ones he had used against Thanos flared between his fingers. Even though he knew nothing of magic or the mystic arts, Tony recognised it as the one Strange had been working on after his trip to the future and as they waited for Thanos to arrive.
It turned itself into a small leather bracelet with a beige circle pendant containing an orange butterfly in the middle.
"What is that?" he questioned, frowning as Strange handed it to him.
"A second chance," he said. "May I?"
Tony looked between his agitated eyes and the bracelet, and nodded once. It didn't feel like much as it was wrapped around his wrist. "A second chance at what?"
Strange didn't answer, instead looking as everyone seemed to gather around them.
"Something's happening," said Mantis, half laying onto Quill. She looked up at them in horror, and then disintegrated into ashes.
Quill looked horrified before them and Tony fought to stand once more, finally feeling something other than the apathy from before.
Fear.
Drax was next, looking at Quill with confusion. "Quill?" He managed, before turning to dust as well.
The Captain turned to Tony, and Tony found his own fear reflected back into those teary eyes. "Steady, Quill," he forced out, but even as he said it he could see the tip of his fingers turning into dust.
"Aw, man," said Quill, disintegrating before his eyes.
"Tony," called Strange, and Tony was shaking his head, as if he could force him to remain in one piece by sheer force of will.
"No."
"There was no other way," he said, with a small smile, and then he too disappeared.
"Mr. Stark?" called Peter, and no, this wasn't fear.
This was terror.
Please no, he begged, staring horrified at Peter as the boy crashed against him. "I don't feel so good."
"You're all right," he told him, forcing himself to breathe and to remain calm, to be reassuring (who was he reassuring? Himself or Peter?)
The boy stumbled and he looked so scared, as his arms wrapped around Tony's neck. "I don't know what's- I don't know what's happening. I don't-" he said, and maybe it was Peter crying, maybe it was Tony, maybe it was both. Because this wasn't fair, this wasn't right. "I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, Mr. Stark, please. Please, I don't wanna go."
He was begging him. Begging Tony to fix it, and Tony couldn't fix it. He couldn't fix it, he couldn't save his boy, please if there was a force in the Universe able to stop this please let Peter live, Tony would sign his soul to anyone, just please-
"I don't wanna go," he repeated, and Tony was shaking as silent tears rolled down his cheeks, both of them falling onto the ground and god, half of Peter was already gone. The boy - his boy - made eye contact with him one last time. He looked terrified
"I'm sorry," he told him, before turning into dust.
Tony breathing stuttered, his heart stopping in his chest as he was left with nothing but a pile of dust in his hands.
Peter was gone.
According to just about everyone, there were five stages of grief.
In order they went: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
Stranded on a ship in space with no one but a slightly murderous alien, Tony went through all of them in a completely different order.
On that rock on Titan, after they lost, Tony was already in the acceptance stage. He had known they were going to die, and then Strange had gone ahead and confirmed it to him.
Then they were all... dusted - not killed, dusted (was that denial or bargaining?) - and Tony went into depression and crying and all the gross stuff that came with it.
There was nothing to bargain, and denial wouldn't change his new Titan based collection of future nightmares, but anger came at last.
So much fucking anger.
At Thanos (for taking six years of his life, for taking Peter), at those stupid rocks, at Nebula (for telling Quill), at himself (for surviving), at the Guardians (for turning into dust), at Rogers (for lying, for not listening), at Loki (for New York, and for bringing the sceptre), at Thor (for leaving the sceptre on Earth, the sceptre that killed JARVIS), at Maximoff (for the vision she gave him), at Strange (why was this the only way? Why hadn't he explained? why hadn't he let him die before he saw Peter's death? how did he expect Tony to save the world, to bring them back with nothing but a fucking bracelet?), and at the Universe (why Peter? Why him? Peter was good, he was the best of them all, so why-).
He wanted to break something, to shout, to destroy, but they didn't have time for that. They barely had enough oxygen and his stab wound was looking way too close to being infected for him to even try.
So he went through the five stages of grief once again.
It's was little funny, mused Tony, looking at the helmet sitting in front of him.
It was pretty fucking hilarious to be saved from certain death from Infinity Stones and/or stab wound just to die of dehydration, malnutrition and suffocation days later.
He wondered if Strange had hated him, after all, and decided that a painful death suited him more.
He didn't think so, though. There had been... too much emotion as he held Tony's face in his hands and as he gave him the stupid bracelet that he hadn't explained in the slightest.
He had seen something in those futures that had made him decide that this was the best way. Tony, known control freak, wasn't sure he agreed with the wizard's choices, but then again, he didn't know all the variables.
He pressed on the recorder.
"This thing on? Hey, Miss Potts... Pep. If you find this recording, don't post it on social media. It's gonna be a real tear-jerker. I don't know if you're ever going to see these. I don't even know if you're... if you're still... Oh god, I hope so. Today is day 21, uh, 22. You know, if it wasn't for the existential terror of staring into a void of space, I'd say I'm feeling better today. The infection's run its course, thanks to the blue meanie back there. You'd love her. Very practical. Only a tiny bit sadistic. Some fuel cells were cracked during battle, but we figured out a way to reverse the ion charge to buy ourselves about 48 hours of time. But it's now dead in the water. We're 1000 light years from the nearest 7-11. Oxygen will run out tomorrow. And that'll be it. And Pep, I... I know I said no more surprises, but I was really hoping to pull off one last one. But it looks like... well you know what it looks like. Don't feel bad about this. I mean, if you grovel for a couple of weeks, and then move on with enormous guilt. I should probably lie down. Please know that... when I drift off, I will think about you. Because it's always you."
He turned off the transmission.
Then he went to sit down at the piloting chair, and waited to die once more.
Acceptance, again.
Tony seriously think that, somewhere in the Universe, someone was laughing at him.
If there was someone directing the shitshow they were now living, they must be laughing at Tony as they shoved plot twist after plot twist into his life.
Because otherwise...
No, there was no otherwise. How else would one explain why in the fuck Tony was looking at Carol Danvers from the 90s, the lesbian Air Force Captain Rhodey used to have a crush on, floating in front of him in, in space, glowing like some sort of angel of vengeance and looking like she had not aged a day?
Seriously.
What the fuck?
"Do you know who she is?" asked Nebula, sitting next to him as Danvers single hand flew towards Earth, holding their spaceship over her head like it was a bowl of fruit.
Tony nodded, wincing slightly. "Captain Carol Danvers. She and my platypus were in the Air Force together."
Nebula looked surprised. "I thought Captain Marvel was Kree."
Tony looked away from where the Earth was approaching faster and faster, and over at Nebula. "I don't know what a Kree is, but she disappeared in like 1990, I think she was declared MIA. Missing in Action," he clarified at Nebula's confused expression. "Couldn't find the body, but everyone thought she was dead." A pause. "Well, everyone except the not-girlfriend-but-totally-girlfriend."
Nebula blinked at him. "You are very confusing, Terran."
"I get that a lot," he said, a strange weight settling even more heavily on his chest as the Avengers Compound appeared in their sights.
The bracelet had never felt more heavy on his wrist.
He had a name for the weight, at least.
Dread.
"Carol," he called.
After arriving on Earth, Rhodey had helped him down the steps of the Benatar, before passing him to an alive Pepper Potts. Together the two of them plus Nebula and Carol had headed to the medbay, and helped him with his stab wound and new clothing.
It had been a very tearful event.
Now he was supposed to return to the meeting room for a more 'comprehensive debrief', but the thought of seeing exactly how many of them were left made him want to throw up.
He had tried to question them about Happy and May, but Rhodey had simply shook his head and told him he needed rest. He wasn't sure if it meant they were deadgone or that he didn't know or that he wasn't going to answer him now.
He was afraid to ask again.
"Tony," answered Carol, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
"How did you end up in space? And why don't you look a day older than 22? You're supposed to be in your fifties."
She didn't smile - no one had the strength to smile anymore - but she seemed ever so slightly amused. "Someone thought to use the Tesseract to make a navigation system like the Bifrost. Someone else tried to steal the system. It exploded. Gave me these cool powers," she lit up one hand for effect. "The people who wanted to steal it - the Kree - decided to steal meinstead, and raise me as their own for six years. I don't know if they stole my memories or I lost them in the crash, but well, I didn't know who the fuck I was and they gave me an identity. Then, in 1995 I crash landed on Earth. Met Fury, became friends, found Maria and Monica, saved the Earth and proceeded to go and save some Skrulls for the next apparently 23 years."
Tony blinked. "How is the phrase 'met Fury, became friends' the most shocking part of that entire report?"
She snorted, shrugging. "I knew him when he had two eyes. I was the original Avenger." Then she tilted her head to the side, curious. "How did a civilian end up fighting in a suit of armour and become famous across the Universe for destroying an entire Chitauri battalion in one single strike?"
Tony shrugged too. "My parents died, my godfather took over the company till I was 21. We made SI big together, then, fast forward to 2009, he decided I was too much of a hassle and ordered a hit on me. The kidnappers decided they had been cheated and tried to make me build them a weapon instead of killing me. I don't do well with orders so instead I built a suit of armour and got the fuck out of dodge. Then I decided to use said suit of armour to clean up the weapons dear Stane decided to sell under the table and became the first official superhero on Earth. Come 2012 Loki of Asgard brings an army of Chitauri through a portal on top of my Tower, the Avengers assemble to fight them, then the WSC freaks out and aims a nuke on the city. I go through the portal, aim at the mothership and here we are."
"Loki brought the Chitauri to Earth?" she questioned, sounding confused. "Loki?"
"You know him?"
"About 6 foot tall, long black hair, looks like an anaemic Victorian orphan?" she clarified, and wow. Spot on. "Yeah, I know him. Travelled together for a while, and he tried to teach me teleportation since apparently my powers echo similarly to the Bifrost. But we didn't have enough time, and he couldn't Bifrost from where we were to Asgard and show me." She shook his head. "He's not the bloodthirsty kind."
That was what Thor told them, but no one had payed him much stock, considering the whole sibling bias. "Maybe. But things change."
Carol nodded too, looking away from him and into the debriefing room. "That they do."
He followed her gaze and forced down the simmering anger that threatened to come out the second he saw Rogers standing close to the door, seemingly warring with himself on whether or not to come inside and get them.
He stood up, ignoring the way both Rhodey and Nebula rushed to help, and then stumbled.
Tony would have been embarrassed at the stumbling, had it not been for how Rhodey ended up on the floor with a groan and Nebula also lost her balance, catching herself at the last minute, the Earth groaning under them like a...
"Are we having a fucking earthquake?" he demanded at nothing, the ground rumbling under their feet like an upset stomach. "In New York? Now? Really?!"
He had more to say, more complaints, but then cracks started appearing in the air in front of them.
"What the fuck? What the fuck?" came Pepper's voice, and Tony's words died in his throat.
He wanted to rush and protect her, go and stand close to her, but he couldn't move as he watched the dark lines appearing all around him, darker than space, darker than anything he had ever seen.
An abyss, hiding in the makeup of the Universe.
"What's going on?" shouted Rhodey, and Tony could hear more screams and shouts coming from the debrief room. FRIDAY was silent, and Tony was glad that his baby wouldn't have to die an horrific death like everyone else.
He wished he had had time to put DUM-E and U to sleep himself.
"The fabric of reality is breaking," said Tony, and once again his voice was as calm and collected as it had been on Titan right after Thanos left. "He destroyed the stones."
"Tony!" shouted Pepper, and he turned around to see her crying, absolutely terrified as she tried to reach towards him. But the cracks and the void lines were growing all around them, and one step meant they could fall. Not even Carol could fly from where she was, for all intents and purposes, surrounded by lines and cracks.
Screams like thousands of tortured souls filled the room, filled the air, filled the Universe, a hellish sound pulsating from the cracks in the fabrics of reality and of the Universe, like the Multiverse itself was crying and mourning their deaths, and Tony could feel the grief and pain of the entire world, of every soul like it was his own.
He saw Carol deciding to say 'fuck it' and moving - to do what, Tony didn't know. He saw her fly for one second, and then falling into one of the cracks. He saw Nebula reaching out for her, trying to grab her before the abyss grabbed her back, and pulled her into the void.
He saw Rhodey stumble when the Earth shook again, and they both screamed when the man fell down into the void himself.
H e fell, he fell again, and Tony didn't save him.
"Pepper," he called, turning around, but she was already gone.
He had not even seen her fall.
S he fell, she fell again, and Tony didn't save her.
Tony slowly stood up.
She was gone. Pepper was gone, and he hadn't even seen her, hadn't even heard her fall.
Reality was splintering, their Universe was dying, and the grief made the air sour.
He felt tears rolling down his cheek, but there was a smile on his face as he made eye contact with Steve Rogers. The blond was crouched on the ground and his eyes were wide and blue, just like in that vision from so long ago, a nightmare from a HYDRA base in Sokovia.
The screaming grew, like broken nails scraping over shattering metal with pieces of glass between each fingers. Then Tony waved goodbye to Steve Rogers, looked at the bracelet once more, closed his eyes and took a step into the void.
(His eyes were closed as he fell through the gaps of the Universe and into the void. His eyes were closed as the ravenous orange Chaos itself ate the world he'd have protected with his own life.
His eyes were closed, and so he did not see the butterflies following after him in the darkness. He did not see the multicoloured wings flapping after him as he fell and fell and fell and-
He did not see the soul imprints and the way his bracelet caught them one by one:
the green premonitions, the blue wormholes, the red tendrils, the purple bruises, the yellow thoughts, the orange memories
He did not see where they came from, when they came from.
He hadn't seen on Titan, had he? Hadn't seen a spell as simple as it was frowned upon, a spell no one in their right mind would ever cast.
His eyes were closed.)
Tony fell, he died, and the Universe broke.