Chapter 1
You wake up peacefully as most days, taking in the bittersweet sound of your alarm. Another normal day. Walking from your apartment bedroom into the kitchen with groggy eyes, you pour yourself a coffee subconsciously as you’ve been doing every morning, and open the cupboard to look for cereal when your phone pinged a notification.
“We on to re-watch Civil War tonight?” the message from your best friend read. You chuckled to yourself while eating, replying a, “My place 9pm, you better not be late."
Just then while eating, your entire world paused. You looked around. No it was just quiet, you say to yourself. You look back again, too quiet maybe . Just as quick as the pause was, that was how quick your window broke as well, a body flying through it. “What in the-” you couldn't even put your arms down from covering your face or finish your sentence before you heard the powering down of the arc reactor. “F.R.I.D.A.Y what the hell happened?” you heard a voice say, you now lowering your arms.
“Sir it seems the quantum realm travel had an error as you were returning and you landed somewhere I can’t loca-” the A.I. said before being cut off. The man who crashed through your living room cursed under his breath as his A.I. shut down. You stood there in awe, what the hell is happening. You saw he was wearing an Iron Man suit and now you were thinking you were in some fever dream where the dead love of your life Tony Stark crashes through your window, trying to pinch yourself awake. “What the hell is going on. Who are you?” you ask him, grabbing the nearest thing you could throw at him, a spoon, holding it close to your person.
The Iron Man mask pulls back, his nanotech suit retracting, and there stood one Tony Stark. “ Oh my god it's Robert Downey Jr.” were the first things you thought, the voice of Tom Holland saying that line in your head. You stood shell shocked, not really sure what to do or what was happening. “Kid I don’t really think a spoon is gonna stop me if I was gonna do anything would it?” he says, and you drop your spoon from your hand. “Oh. My. God. RDJ just broke in my window. I think I’m going crazy if this is a dream, never wake me up,” was all you could manage to say. Before he could say anything in return though, you started questioning your sanity. “Wait wait that’s not possible if you’re RDJ, how did you crash in my window in an actual damn iron man suit?”
He looked confused by your question, more confused than you. “Who’s RDJ?” he asks. You stand, still shocked. “Haha very good joke. You, dingus,” you answered, at this point a hundred percent sure you’re just in some weird fantasy dream. “I’ve got a pretty distinct face sweetheart. I would know if someone named ‘RDJ’ looked like me. Do you really not know who I am?” he commented truthfully, and oh you would be lying if you said your knees didn’t wobble when he called you sweetheart, it was like a childhood dream come true.
You took a chance, and answered his question. “Tony…Stark?” he lit up at your answer. “Of course kid who else. I don’t know how it took you that long,” he replied, now looking around your apartment. “Wait wait no no- but that’s not possible you’re not- you’re not real. And I’m pretty sure RDJ doesn’t have a fully functioning Iron Man suit.” he rolled his eyes at your words. “I’m real as it gets sugar.”
“Well even if you were real you would be dea-” you cut yourself off, not daring to finish that sentence. If he’s actually who he says he is and his A.I. earlier said something about quantum realm travel, he hasn’t faced Thanos yet. He isn’t dead. You shake off your thoughts and toss him a ‘nevermind’, with him apparently not caring as he’d already been interested in looking around the apartment he crashed in.
Just before he was about to enter your room, you slammed the door shut. “No.” was all you said. “Why not? Come on now I’m curious, besides it's all I can do while FRIDAY is offline and my suit is powered down.” he pleads. You couldn’t let him in if all your marvel merch was there. Pop figures, posters, figurines, hell you even had the infinity gauntlet in there. Even if this was a dream or not, showing Tony Stark all of that did not seem like a good idea.
Well too late because the entire time you were contemplating that with yourself, he pushed the door open. “NO- oh no.” was all you could say. He looked around, your room a mess and Marvel all over. He stood still, “Holy fuck.”
“Language,” you blurt out subconsciously, smacking yourself internally for making a Captain America reference in front of Iron Man.
“That’s what the capsicle says, and I hate to think you're a capsicle type of guy,” was all he answered. Now you were the confused one. Why was he not freaked out by the fact you had figurines and replicas of them? Just when you thought you were safe, he turned his head to the posters and that’s when he just stared. “Okay what’s this.”
“They’re…posters? Of each movie,” you explain. You couldn’t believe this was happening right now. Your childhood hero and maybe crush was right in front of you staring at your posters of him and the Avengers.
He examined your Endgame poster, and you thanked God you didn’t choose to put up the one where he snapped at the end of the movie. Instead it was one where all the Avengers were there. “How the hell do you have something like this?” he asks, putting his nanotech iron man suit back on and aiming his repulsors at you, wary of you and your posters. You obviously wince backwards, and raise your hands in defense “Wait! Wait! I can explain, I already told you earlier, you’re not real.”
He raises his eyebrow in confusion. “How exactly am I not real?” you take out your phone and open your browser. “Here, look, the Avengers movies. You’re just…entertainment for us,” you say truthfully, fearing for your life while his repulsors still aim at you. As if understanding your thoughts he stood down, and looked at the search results on your phone. “Very flattering casting,” was all he commented. Now you were the one confused again. “That’s all you have to say for figuring you’re not real to us?”
“Would you rather I have a panic attack right here bud?” he asks nonchalantly. Just then he pauses, thinking of something. “If we’re just movies to you, do you know our whole time travel thing?” you freeze, not wanting to answer that question because of what the next question might be. “Yes,” you answer, as much as you didn’t want to. “So you know what’s gonna happen after this?” and there it was. The question you didn’t want a fictional character to ask. “…Yes.”
He looked at you, really looked at you, and you felt like you were dying under the fictional characters' look. “Tony Stark,” is all he says, extending his arm for you to shake. “I mean you obviously know that but at this point you gotta say your name back so,” he adds, trailing off. You shake his arm and tell him your name. “Huh…that’s a pretty name. I feel like you can help me,” is what he replies. You look in confusion. “How could I help and for what?”
“Well you know a lot about us, and you could say you’re like some type of overseer.”
“That would imply I would come to your universe with you.”
“Yeah, that's kinda the whole point cupcake.”
“You’re expecting me to leave my entire life to help you?” of course you would. You’ve always thought of running away with your favorite fictional character. But now that it’s happening in front of you, it feels all too fast. What would your parents say? Well not that they cared much about you but still, what about your best friend? Would they be jealous of you for leaving them or congratulate you for achieving one of your dreams. Would you even survive a day in their universe? You shook your head. This is a childhood dream that no one could experience, You had to take it.
“Well…?” Tony asks, impatient for a response. “I’m in.”