i find your lack of faith disturbing
Thanos’ arm and all the way up the side of his face was charred; it smelled like rotting flesh. The stones which were previously held in the gauntlet were nowhere to be seen. However, no one was really looking at Thanos in that moment.
Tony had gone completely silent, a stark difference from his previous shouting. His suit seemed to have disappeared, as Tony was standing there with no armor, looking too vulnerable. The veins of his hand, the one that was still resting atop the gauntlet, were glowing in all the colors of the rainbow. He stood perfectly still for a second, disturbingly still, as if his life were flashing before his eyes (three months after the Vulture fiasco a year and a half before-), before collapsing to the ground, his eyes rolled back in his head.
“Tony!” Someone shouted.
Rhodey and Carol were both by his side in an instant, pulling him away from the Mad Titan, who was standing over them with a peaceful look upon his face. Carol hated the way Tony’s head lolled this way and that as they dragged him across the floor of the house Thanos had made for himself.
“Oh no,” Rocket said, his eyes on the empty gauntlet.
“Where are they?” Steve asked, his voice full of grief.
“Answer the question!” Carol sneered, looking the monster in the eyes as Rhodey tried to shake Tony awake.
“The universe required correction.”
Rocket scoffed, and Steve visibly tightened his jaw.
“After that,” Thanos continued. “The stones served no purpose, beyond temptation.”
“You murdered trillions!”
“You should be grateful.”
“Where are the stones?” Natasha asked, her breath shaking.
“Gone. Back where the Universe intended.”
“The Hell is that supposed to mean?” Rhodey asked, frustrated tears gleaming in his eyes.
“Spread across the universe, I assume. I did not need anything else from them.”
“What about him? Huh?” Carol’s voice was raised as she took a step closer to the Titan. “He’s not part of your one-half, save-the-world bullshit. What was that?”
Thanos looked down at Tony’s unconscious form. “I did him a favor,” he said.
“Bullshit!” Rocket declared. “He looks like he’s fucking dead! What did you do?”
A morbid, condescending look rested on the monster’s face as he spoke up again. “He did say he would like to see his child, right? I simply made his wish for him. I assume the only place for it to come true would be in the land of the dead, but I would never have intentionally killed Stark. We had a deal.”
“He… He has to be lying. He can’t be dead,” Rhodey said. “FRIDAY, is there a pulse?”
“My father is many things,” Nebula responded. “A liar is not one of them.”
“Boss appears to have a heartbeat and is breathing normally, but brain activity is critically low.”
Thanos completely ignored the AI, keeping his attention on Nebula. “Ah, thank you, daughter. Perhaps I treated you too harshly.”
Before Thor could properly think about what he was doing, Stormbreaker was in his hand and he was swinging it right at Thanos’ head. It fell to the ground with a sickening thud. Blood splattered and made its way onto Nebula’s face, onto the new part Tony had crafted for her head. It felt deliberate, somehow, like a sign. Nebula did not like its implications, especially as the man in question lay in a heap with rainbow in his veins.
Maybe Thanos was always meant to pull Tony down to the underground with him.
“What…” Rocket trailed off. This was the first time Nebula had ever seen him at a loss for words. “What did you do?”
An empty sort of look crept over the god’s face as Bruce gazed at him worriedly.
“I went for the head,” he said simply, definitively, before turning and walking out of the building.
---
This time, Rhodey was the one to lug Tony’s unconscious form back to the ship. Nebula threatened to kill him if he so much as let one of Tony’s toes hit the ground.
---
Thor approached Nebula on the ship at some point on the journey back towards Earth. She had been standing in the doorway to the room where Tony was resting, pretending not to care as much as she truly did.
“I am deeply sorry,” He said, unable to meet Nebula’s eyes. “Killing him was… It wasn’t my place. It should’ve been you, if anyone. I know how hard evil family members can be. I can always try to help you, if you need it.”
Nebula remembered what Tony had told her about playing it cool with the other Avengers. He had told her that they didn’t look like it, but they could and would turn on teammates with little to no persuasion. He had gone on about Stark Charm, and how he always wore a mask in front of others to keep bad things from happening. She completely understood this, as she had been present for one or two of those bad things.
“Thank you,” she said, voice just flat enough that it didn’t sound genuine. Luckily, Thor didn’t really seem to get that. “He deserved it, but-”
“But you wanted to deliver the final strike.” Thor nodded, a sad smile on his face. “I sincerely apologize. I did not think before attacking.”
“Don’t let it keep you up at night.” Nebula said. Thor seemed to get that she didn’t want to have this conversation anymore, so he gave her one final nod before turning and walking away.
She glanced over the rest of the ship. Avengers were scattered all around. When she was younger and had first heard of the Avengers, the heroes from Earth who defeated Thanos’ space fleet, she had been impressed. She figured the only team who could beat her father was a tight-knit team, a group of people who knew each other better than they knew themselves. But now, looking over them all…
Rocket was sitting alone in the pilot seat. Carol sat in the passenger’s seat, uncharacteristically quiet, her eyes on the stars. Steve was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed in frustration and maybe grief. Natasha had a hand on his shoulder. Thor had gone over to Bruce on the opposite end of the ship. Out of all of them, Rhodey was the only one by Tony’s side.
Some team, they were.
(Nebula remembered one day right after they had landed on Earth, day 24, maybe. Tony had been having a bad day. Well, most of the days in the first week were bad days. When she found him, he was sitting on the floor of his lab, surrounded by various parts of technology even she couldn’t identify. There was a broken mug in the corner, like Tony had chucked it across the room in a fit of rage. There were papers littered with equations, some circled hastily or scribbled out until they were unintelligible, and empty cups of coffee surrounding the entire room.
He was still thin; he had to roll around an IV with him wherever he went. Bruce had wanted him to stay in MedBay for another day, but, once Tony got his head on straight, he wasn’t one to give a single shit about his own well-being when there were people to save, especially if one of those people was Peter. He had shaved, though, if only because he told Cap that he needed to, and he didn’t want to be a liar or anything.
“Hey,” he said, his voice broken. He had texted Nebula on the Stark Phone she still wasn’t quite sure how to use, asking her if she wanted to hang out for a bit. She didn’t say no because she didn’t really know anyone else in the Compound, and she actually kind of enjoyed his company. She would never tell him that, though. “Have you ever seen Star Wars?”
Nebula furrowed her eyebrows. “I believe Quill mentioned that movie before, but I have never seen it. Why?”
Tony looked smaller than he ever had before. “Do you want to watch it? I had DUM-E set up a projector down here, so we’ll probably have to pack up and move to the, uh, living area at some point. If he actually did it correctly, though, I can have FRIDAY bring some blankets.”
The bags under his eyes were clear as day.
“Okay,” she said. She sat down next to Tony pretzel-style, her posture missing any slouch.
Tony raised an eyebrow, what could maybe be identified as a smile playing on his lips. “Is that comfortable?”
“Comfortable?”
“Doesn’t it hurt your back, or your neck, or… I don’t know. Sorry.”
Nebula shrugged.
“Hey FRIDAY,” Tony called. “Wanna play New Hope for us?”
---
As the movie played, Tony watched with a sad nostalgia in his eyes. He was smiling, now, but it was clear that he wasn’t happy.
He must have felt her eyes on him, so, without turning his eyes away from the video, he said: “This was Pete’s favorite movie. He made me watch it with him, like, fifteen times. I can probably perform a one-man version of it from memory.” Tony laughed softly, his eyes glowing in memory. “He doesn’t understand any metaphor I try to make unless it’s some sort of Star Wars reference.”
Nebula nodded. “Why did you want me here to watch it with you?”
Tony did turn to look at her this time, if only for a moment. “Everyone should see this movie. They say it’s a classic, or something like that. Figured you’d like it. You could trick the others with it, too. I know you like tricking people. Pretend it’s just like this, up there. See how far you get before they catch you.”
So many words, but Nebula knew what he was really saying was that he didn’t want to be alone.)
“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” She whispered, doing her best whisper-Darth Vader. She looked at the others, then back at Tony. It was as if they didn’t care. They’d known him for years, but his injury just didn’t matter. They had no faith, none of the love for each other that Nebula assumed they did when she was young. It was, frankly, disturbing.
---
She moved to his bedside, sliding up a chair on the opposite side of Rhodey less than five minutes later.
---
When Tony came to, everything was dark… Or maybe, empty was the correct word because though Tony couldn’t see anything right in front of him, his hands were clear as day. He turned his head to the right, looking to find anything that wasn’t just infinite nothingness… It seemed that he didn’t have to look too far.
Sitting criss-cross-applesauce and staring at him, eyes wide and mouth agape, was Peter Parker. Tony’s first instinct told him that he was dead. He was dead, and this was the afterlife. That was the only reason Peter would be here. The thought quickly left his mind, though, because there were much more important matters to tend to. Peter, Peter, Tony’s Peter was sitting right there, tears filling up his eyes.
“Mr. Stark?” His voice was hoarse, as if he had spent the past five weeks just screaming.
“Peter,” was all Tony could think to say. His feet seemed frozen as he took another shaky breath.
“Oh God,” Peter whimpered, turning away from Tony and planting his face in his hands. “Oh my God. I’m going crazy.”
“No, Pete, you’re not crazy.” Tony’s voice had picked up that soft quality, the one it only employed when he was around the kid.
“Shut up. I’m not talking to a hallucination.”
Tony’s heart broke in his chest. He knew that Peter wouldn’t be very receptive to further convincing through conversation, so instead he took a few steps closer to the kid, sitting down right next to him. Peter didn’t look up, so, gingerly, Tony moved his knee over until it pressed against Peter’s.
This caused the kid to look up at him, finally, his lips quirking into a small smile despite the obvious tears growing in his eyes. “You’re really here?”
“I think so, kid.”
Before Tony could think of a follow-up statement, maybe an explanation, his arms were full of teenager. Peter buried his head into Tony’s neck, and the man could feel his tears on his skin. Tony couldn’t help but hesitate a moment before hugging him back as tightly as he could manage, biting back tears of his own as the kid’s body shook within his grasp. Tony let his head rest on top of Peter’s, breathing in the scent of curls. Taking a shaky breath, he pressed a quick kiss to Peter’s head. Peter only cried harder in response.
As he held Peter, Tony once again considered the fact that he was dead. Maybe he was, but he didn’t think the afterlife would be so cruel to Peter. It obviously drove him crazy enough to think that he was hallucinating Tony- That made another awful idea enter his head. What if Peter was a hallucination? He didn’t toy around with this idea for too long; Tony knew Peter, knew him like the back of his hand. Tony also knew his own head. He could certainly tell the difference between the two by now. He’d been going crazy for decades, and this wasn’t crazy. This was real; this was Peter.
“Shh,” he whispered, rubbing circles into Peter’s back. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”
“I knew you would come, Mr. Stark. I knew it.”
“Yeah, well, we all know you’re always right. Move on,” Tony joked, pulling back from the hug just enough that he could see the kid’s face.
Peter rolled his eyes, a reluctant grin on his lips.
Tony sighed, running a hand through Peter’s curls. “Do you know where we are?”
“No. I don’t… I’m sorry. I-”
“Hey. Hey. You have nothing to be sorry for. That’s what I meant to tell you, what I was going to tell you, when-” Tony cut himself off abruptly. “When-”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to finish. I know what you’re talking about.”
Tony looked at him again. He kind of never wanted to stop because he knew what losing Peter felt like. He knew it. He knew it hurt more than anything, and looking at him… He could never lose him again. It would literally kill him.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Tony said. “You know, us losing? If anything, it was that stupid magician giving up the stone. If I’d known what was going to happen…”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. I apologized because I knew you were going to feel all guilty about it. I didn’t want you being sad about me.”
“Of course I was going to be sad about you. You’re my kid, kid.”
(Peter had fallen asleep at his lab bench, a plate filled with pizza crusts resting adjacent to his head. A weird feeling hit Tony’s chest like a punch, causing something warm to spread through him. Fondness, maybe.)
(“There’s no way all those parallels are there by accident, Mr. Stark. No way.”
“You really think Star Wars has the guts?”
“Yes! Of course! It’s Star Wars!”
Tony found a small smile growing on his face as Peter rambled on, a new sort of feeling swelling in his chest.)
“You’re like a son to me.” His voice was quiet even though there was no one else around to overhear their conversation. “I love you.”
Peter looked like he was going to cry again. “I love you too, Mr. Stark.”
“Shit,” Tony said, wiping his eyes with a flourish. “Now you’ve got me crying. Congrats.”
Peter laughed, once again burying his face in Tony’s chest; Tony wrapped his arms loosely around the kid again.
“I missed you,” He said. “You’re not allowed to die on me again, capiche?”
“Capiche.”
---
“There appears to be no brain activity besides the normal bodily functions that are keeping him alive,” Bruce explained, trying hard to keep the hopelessness from his voice. “It’s as if his consciousness has up and left.”
“Does that mean he’s… he’s…” Nebula began. She found herself unable to finish, however, due to a strangled sort of feeling in her throat. She swallowed it back down, pursing her lips.
Bruce sighed. “He’s not dead, per se, but… Everything that made Tony Tony rather than just a vessel seems to be gone. I… I don’t… I have no idea what happened, and I have no idea what to do to fix it.”
Pepper cried quietly, picking up one of Tony’s hands and rubbing circles onto his palm. Rhodey hung his head, exhaling shakily.
“Can we have some time with him? Alone?” Rhodey asked. “As much as he’d appreciate the attention, he’d probably be more… himself, if not everyone was here.”
Bruce nodded, beginning to usher everyone out of the room. Nebula turned to walk out the door, but was stopped by-
“Hey, Nebula, wait,” Pepper called. Nebula turned around slowly, fighting to keep her face as clear as possible.
“Yes?”
“You can stay here with us, with him, if you want. Tony… He sent me a message when you two were in space. It didn’t go through, so I wasn’t able to watch it until you came back, but… He said that he would’ve gone crazy on that ship if it weren’t for you. He cares about you.”
Nebula blinked, unsure of what to say. There was a weird sort of feeling in her chest, and there was a prickling in her eyes. Maybe this is what it felt like, she thought, to be human. This is what it felt like to have a heart, to not be a cold-blooded machine. She hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.
She nodded, grabbing a chair from the corner of the room and pulling it over to the edge of Tony’s bed, relatively far away from both Pepper and Rhodey. She sat quietly for a moment before interrupting the silence with a soft, “Thank you.”
Pepper didn’t answer, only smiled. Nebula suddenly came to a realization: This was the place where she belonged. Here, with Tony, and Tony’s family. This was the feeling she had been waiting for, the feeling she had been hoping to find with Gamora and the Guardians. Nebula was desperate, she realized. Tony couldn’t be dead because if he were dead, her family would be gone before she even knew she had it. Surely, the world couldn’t be that cruel.
---
“How could we be so stupid?” Steve exclaimed, pacing back and forth across the conference room.
Natasha was perched at the table, staring at nothing in particular. Bruce and Rhodey sat in the corner of the room, Rhodey looking impatient and Bruce nearly exploding with stress. Carol was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest.
“We should’ve… Why did we think it was going to be so easy?” He declared.
“I don’t know,” Natasha admitted, her voice barely a whisper. “It must’ve been the adrenaline of finding him.”
“Not only did we not, bring them back, but we lost T-”
“We get it, Steve. We get it. We fucked up,” Bruce said, sounding more exhausted than angry.
“We have to get the stones back,” Carol said. “That’s the only way to fix all of this.”
“He said the stones were gone-”
“He said they were back where the universe intended them. That means they’re somewhere. We just have to figure out where.”
“How the Hell are we supposed to do that?” Steve asked.
Carol thought for a moment before sighing. “I have no idea.”
“That kind of science is more Tony’s jurisdiction than mine.”
“Well, Tony is not really an option right now.”
“We have to do something.” Natasha said. “We have to… tell the public what happened to him.”
“Nat, we don’t even know what happened to him-”
“Jesus. Can you guys stop acting like he’s already dead?” Rhodey spoke up, flying to his feet in an almost defensive manner. “He’s not.”
Bruce hung his head, his tongue between his teeth before he spoke up again. “Rhodey. He’s gone. He’s not dead, but he’s gone.”
Rhodey scoffed. “You don’t know him like I know him. He’s a brother to me. No way Thanos took him down so easy. No way.”
“Then explain it to me, okay? Tell me why he’s unconscious in there. Tell me why his readings are so goddamn... weird!” The other Avengers watched Bruce as he raised his voice, expecting the green to spread across his face even though it never would.
“We’re not messing around with science here,” Carol piped in. “This is the Infinity Stones. This is magic. It isn’t like he got shot. You saw him up there; his veins were glowing. That doesn’t just happen.”
“I know, I know, but if we admit it’s magic, we admit there’s nothing we can do except wait. Wait for him to just… magically sit up like nothing was ever wrong, and…” Bruce exhaled sharply. “Without the Hulk, a doctor is all I am. If I can’t help him, then why am I even here?”
The others stared at him, stunned by the outburst.
Bruce deflated quickly, consciously allowing his shoulders to relax as he dropped his gaze to the floor. “I’m… Thor was calling backup. I’m going to… see where he’s at with that. Let me know if… You know.” He walked away, looking embarrassed.
“I’m gonna go give Potts some moral support,” Carol declared after a few moments of awkward silence. “Nebula can probably use a break.”
---
A strange feeling erupted in Tony’s chest, one he had never felt before. It felt like the area around him was shrinking rapidly, and, instead of growing smaller with it, he was just getting bigger, bigger, bigger-
“Mr. Stark, what’s wrong?” Peter asked. Tony could tell by his face that he had instantly entered panic mode.
“Nothing, just this… weird feeling-”
“You’re not going to leave me here, are you?”
“Kid, I-”
“You can’t leave me here, Mr. Stark.” Peter’s breathing sped up, and he rubbed at his own chest as if that would alleviate some of the nerves. “I barely made it… I don’t know how I made it this far, but… You can’t go. Not now. Please.”
Desperation crept its way into Peter’s voice, his eyes wide and begging. He had been alone for so long, and he hated being alone. He couldn’t be alone. He couldn’t be alone anymore. The thought was stuck in his mind, repeating over and over and over again like a broken record. Tony couldn’t leave him. Tony couldn’t leave him. Peter couldn’t be alone anymore. He couldn’t be alone anymore.
“I can’t…” Tony put his hands on Peter’s shoulders in an attempt to ground him. “I can’t make any promises. I have no idea how I got here in the first place. It might be booting me, now, for some reason.”
“No, no, you can’t-”
“I don’t want to, okay? I don’t want to. If it were up to me, I’d stay with you, but… I don’t think it’s up to me.”
Peter choked on his own breath, turning away from Tony and pacing across the blackness.
“Hey, kid, listen to me. Okay? Look at me.”
Peter obeyed, trying to quiet his breathing and keep his face steady.
“I will come back for you. I won’t leave you here. I’m going to get you out. I’m going to come back for you. I promise. I don’t break my promises, you hear me?”
“I don’t know if I can make it that long, Mr. Stark. I don’t know. I don’t know.” Peter couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Words were tumbling out before he even had time to consider what he was saying. He was crying, pleading, just like had on Titan all those weeks ago. “When you showed up here, I was on the brink, okay? I was on the brink. I was trying… Anything to not be in here. Anything. And I… And I… I can’t be alone again. I can’t.”
“Wait for me,” Tony begged. “Wait for me. I’ll get you out, and you’ll never be alone again. You just have to wait a little bit longer, okay? A little bit longer.”
“Mr. Stark-”
Peter did not get to finish his statement, however, because Mr. Stark had faded to dust before his eyes. The kid sat on the ground gracelessly, pulling his knees to his chest and burying his face in them. He cried near silently, rocking back and forth.
“A little bit longer,” He whispered. “Just a little bit longer.”