One down, another one to go
The Flerken moved in as cats do, incrementally increasing her visits till one day, Tony realized he had gotten himself a lab cat. He put down the screwdriver he was holding and glared a bit at Goose lounging in her favorite spot (The one from where a deft tentacle could get at any tasty bits that fell from Tony's workbench)... And when did the damned thing got a favorite spot, complete with cushion ?
He said the last bit aloud, which elicited a few reactions: Goose smirked, whiskers vibrating in amusement, Dum-E whined a bit, and JARVIS felt the need to put his two cents in.
"Sir, Dum-E asked for the cushion, since Goose indeed does cut on his lab cleaning time."
Tony looked at Dum-E, who was doing the robotic equivalent of kicked puppy, and knew he'd been had. Sighed.
"I'm not mad, Dum-E... Just, someone could have been a little less sneaky about things." Tony patted Dum-E claw, who gave a happy beep and rolled over to make a celebratory smoothie (hopefully without fine grade motor oil this time), and looked at the flerken.
"So, you left SHIELD and Fury to their lies and manipulations?"
Goose huffed disdainfully and made a good show of total indifference by licking a paw.
"Did you at least pee in his boots before you left?"
Goose froze mid lick.
"No? Too bad. I'd have thought he deserved something, for the collar bugging and second rate food, you know... Going somewhere?" He added as the Flerked moved suddenly as she was late for an appointment "Well, don't be late for dinner, I'm ordering Alaskan crab to celebrate your moving in. Get on it, Jarv."
Goose looked briefly conflicted, she was crab addicted. But apparently, a prospect of smelly revenge trumped an amusing session of shell destruction by tentacles before getting to the sweet meat inside.
Priorities.
She ran a little faster, though.
Tony didn't watch. He'd had JARVIS record Goose way of travelling via her own inner pocket dimensions to study it, and the least you could say was the procedure was slightly disgusting. Thankfully fast, but still... The billionaire shrugged and returned to his tinkering.
"Sir, I am afraid we do have a visitor that is not likely to take no for an answer" JARVIS said suddenly as a CCTV image flashed up.
"Ah, yes. Him."
"You were expecting him, Sir?" JARVIS sounded a little confused, and Tony shrugged.
"I had a hunch he was going to show up sometime as I started changing stuff. Let him in before he tears the building down, will you? Oh, and heat up the vat."
The older man that passed the lab door smiled at Tony "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr Stark. You don't know me, but I have very relevant information concerning the future... It may sound strange, but you need to shut down your weapon manufacturing and affiliate yourself with SHIELD."
There was a long silence, then Tony barked a laugh.
"That's it? Shut your business and become Fury's lapdog? You're not even going to try harder? You show up, start giving me orders, and I'm supposed to obey them?"
"You don't know who I am, but..." Tony didn't let him finish.
"Sure do. Captain Asshole."
"I beg your pardon?" But Tony saw in his eyes the other man had gotten it.
"As well you should, since for me, the last time we saw each other, you did your best in trying to kill me. Probably succeeded, in fact."
"How... what? You can't... It's not supposed to be this way!"
Tony looked at his nails while Rogers floundered for a few minutes, but it stopped being fun very fast.
"I dunno, Rogers. Something interfered, I was thrown back to Afghanistan. I have my theory, but..." Rogers came a bit closer and spoke urgently.
"Tony, listen to me. You don't know, but you were right. There was someone behind Loki, and he will come back to kill all of us".
"You, saying I was right about something? Are you sick, Rogers, or just gotten senile?"
"But we won, Tony! We won the war! So, you see, you mustn't do anything different from last time, or we might lose this time."
"Oh? so we defeat that guy and then everybody can go home? If we do things just like last time, we're saved? ALL of us?"
"Yes, now you're getting it!" Rogers smiled, obviously sure he'd gotten what he wanted... as always. Tony let him bask 30 seconds, which was much more than he deserved... But he really wanted the rest to hurt.
"Still a liar, eh, Cap?"
"Wha..."
"Not going to tell me who's going to pay the price, Rogers? Who's going to die to defeat Thanos, leaving a widow and a little girl? Piece of shit."
Rogers opened his mouth, but Tony was not in the mood to listen to whatever tripe was going to come out of it "Shut up. Tough luck, asshole. I LIVED up to Siberia, but I was shown the rest. My theory is that you staying in 1948 to live your best, selfish life was the straw that broke the camel's back. As per usual, you shat on everything to get your way.... Except this time you went too far, and the space-time continuum is trying to heal itself."
Rogers crossed his arms and gave the patented 'Captain America is disappointed in you' look "And what you're doing is no different, Tony."
"Actually, it is. THAT is why I told you to keep interactions to a minimum... Which you promptly discarded as soon as you saw something you wanted: We created time loops, which is never good. Small ones, the Universe will repair fast and the continuum is restored. That WAS the point, if you recalled. But no, you had to *get the girl*, so you created a 67 years time loop. In fact, you are still doing it."
"I'm not! I never interfered with anything!"
"That's because you're a selfish bastard. And actually, it's just because you're here: There are TWO Steven Rogers in this universe, which are both the same but different. THAT is the problem.
To be fully honest, I think it's why my spirit was sent back, to correct that wrong. You're the mistake, but I'm a palimpsest: If I erase you, I'll get to rewrite that timeline as the original one. And, honey, it's gonna be a real pleasure, not to live in Captain America's world."
Tony had worked on lots of things since he'd come back. Some new, some old. That micro missile with cloaking tech was state of the art... and the guiding program no slouch either. Straight up the nose and explosion. Whatever passed for brains in Rogers cranium was akin to consommé, at this point. Good. Now for the important bit:
"JARVIS, open the vat. U, DUM-E, you do as daddy told you and you be careful, this is very important.
Tony watched as his bots lifted the idiot remains and slid them down the vat of smelted ores. JARVIS closed the thing before the smell of burning flesh and bones could penetrate the room.
"Are you sure this was the right course of action, sir?"
"I did not lie to the bastard, Jarv. His very existence was destroying the space-time continuum. Being in two places at the same time is for quarks, not humans. So, now we keep the vat on melt till he's burned to atoms. It should solve that problem, at least."
"You don't sound very happy, sir."
"Well, we are STILL going to have to contend with a Captain Murica... Probably soon, now. Trust me, one of those is plenty enough. As for happiness? No, that's not the word.... Satisfactory? Closer. It had to be done... Like... Taking out the trash.
Then Tony sort of felt it. Like the universe sighed. A relieved sigh.
Well, he could sure get behind that one.
*one down, another one to go*