Tony’s given a lot of thought to death.
Seen more of it than he can say. Delivered it. Brushed it off his own shoulders a thousand times. The Grim Reaper has been an old lover for his whole life; breathed her dark breath into Tony’s face, been the first and last kiss on his lips, taken the air right out of his lungs. Easy as anything.
He was just eight when he first felt it. It came upon the rain and the wind, pounding up against his jacket, splashing from the mud getting all over the dress shoes Jarvis had shined just a week ago. Sang a little song to Tony while he did it, laughing when Tony laughed. Just a week ago.
“Edwin Jarvis lived his life kindly,” the pastor had said, like it somehow made sense. Like it made sense that Jarvis was here a week ago, and he wasn’t ever going to be here again. “He will be rewarded in the kingdom of the Lord for that.”
Tony couldn’t imagine a kingdom. Maybe he was just too young, but looking at the box that was supposed to hold Jarvis’ body underneath the ground, he couldn’t see it in his mind’s eye.
All he could see was Jarvis shining shoes. Just a week ago.
“Anthony, are you alright?” his mom asked, looking down at him with the corners of her lips turned down in concern. Like how Jarvis had always looked at him when Tony was sad, and it made him ache in a way he didn’t understand. He stared at the rain pouring off her hat like a steady stream, just trying to breathe. “Do you need to go to the car?”
Tony started to nod, feeling hot tears prick at the back of his eyes even though he fought them tooth and nail. His dad told him he was too old to act like a baby. He was too old to cry.
“Don’t coddle him, Maria,” Howard had said, right on cue, catching Tony’s shoulder in an uncomfortably tight grip. When Tony turned to look at him, his father didn’t face away from the coffin being lowered into the ground, but he didn’t need to. The message was clear. His voice was like metal and men that didn’t cry.
Tony knew from the way his mom had flinched that there was no hope of escape. He’d have to endure this. And he didn’t blame her. Not when he smelled like the beers Tony brought him to try and calm him down. Not when she once made sure Jarvis would read him his bedtime story for two straight weeks after Howard chipped her jaw (that had been a bad one.) And not when she spent over fifteen minutes covering both their bruises with makeup, albeit spending more time on her face than his, before they left today.
“I’m sorry, Howard,” she apologized, sounding wobbly but sincere.
“You will be,” was his answer.
And his mom, who hadn’t cried throughout the whole service, broke down then.
She wouldn’t curl her fingers around Tony’s little hand, but he still held tight. Squeezed her palm. Tried to tell her in the morse code he learned from whiskey-ruined Captain America comics that it’d be alright.
“Hold my hand, Mom,” he’d whispered to her, remembering all the times Jarvis had done the same for him. Comforted him when he was scared. It was all Tony could do to just try to stomach the sadness when he thought of how Jarvis should have been holding his hand, but couldn’t anymore. His palms were a Lord’s kingdom away, or so they told him. Tony pled, because he didn’t know what else to do, “You’ll feel better, Mom. I promise. Just hold my hand.”
The thing is, though, that she didn’t know morse. She hadn’t sat down with him to help him decipher dashes and dots as Jarvis had. The butler that became his best friend had tapped on the table, things like “-.-- --- ..- / .- .-. . / ... --- / ... -- .- .-. - (you are so smart)” and “-.-- --- ..- / .- .-. . / ... --- / ... -- .- .-. - (I believe in you).” Smiled when he got it right and smiled even when he got it wrong. Didn’t yell like his dad.
The only time Tony ever heard Jarvis yell was when he wasn’t supposed to. Howard had been drunk one night and Tony had been stupid, running into the workshop because he’d heard a terrible bang. And when he found his father bringing himself out from beneath jagged scrap metal, Howard was furious.
“You--- you shouldn’t be in here!” Howard had slurred in a rage, getting to his feet slowly but surely. “You… You never, never listen! I’m gonna-- I’m gonna make you listen!” Tony was too afraid to move, even though he had time to. He just stood stock still till his dad wound clumsy hands into the lapels of his shirt, shook him around something awful. “What the hell do you have to say for yourself?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. He couldn’t even cry, he was so afraid. “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
Howard had beat him anyway.
It was by chance that Jarvis saw him limping through the halls (he was supposed to have been gone hours ago, home with his wife and cat.) And Jarvis, because he loved him in all the ways his father didn’t, hadn’t been angry with Tony. He’d just picked up the crying little boy, hushed him gently, tucked him into bed so incredibly carefully and said, “I’ll be back in a moment’s time, Master Anthony.” He even shut the door soft when he left.
Tony was tempted by sleep, but before he could get there, two angry voices through the wall woke him back up. He recognized one instantly as his father, and felt a rush of fear, but struggled to place the other. It seemed vaguely familiar, though he was sure he’d never heard it before.
“Don’t tell me how to treat my son!” he could pick out Howard shouting.
“You don’t touch Anthony again, Mister Stark,” the other voice spat, furious. “Or I swear to God---”
“You’ll what, Jarvis? What will you do? I can fire you.”
Jarvis, Tony thought with some shock. He didn’t have much time to think about it before they were at it again, loud and clear.
“If you do that, I’m taking Tony with me.” Jarvis’ tone was dead serious. Not a single change of inflection.
“What?” Howard laughed, as disbelieving as Tony was hearing it. “You… You think you could do better, is that it? You’re gonna raise him right and—“
“I’ve been raising him for years,” Jarvis cut in, all the usual courtesy from his tone gone. Just leaving an angry, angry man. “And I’ve loved every moment of it. I don’t stay at this job for you, Howard.” He let the first name of his employer out like a curse before adding, “You’re a piss-poor excuse of a father and Anthony deserves so much better than either of us. But so help me God. I’m better than you.”
All was silent for a moment, stunned. “Well, I—“
“Never. Again. Don’t forget I’ve got enough dirt to bury you, Mister Stark, and I will if you even think of touching him while I’m on this earth to stop you.”
Howard had given a grunt of begrudging approval, someone who knows he’s been beat.
When Jarvis came back in to check on him a few minutes later (coming up to tuck the blankets even tighter, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead, said “Goodnight, Master Anthony. Sleep well.”) Tony feigned sleep because he didn’t know what to do knowing someone loved him enough to risk their whole livelihood for him.
And as he stood over Jarvis’ grave, knowing no one loved him like that anymore, he cried. His father would punish him for it later.
But death was whispering in his ear, crawling up his skin. He couldn’t do anything but cry.
————-
Tony was older when death next came knocking. He was eighteen and stupid; drinking down his demons just to vomit them into his unreasonably high tech toilet (MIT wanted him to redo their plumbing as community service for all the hell he raised there) the next morning.
He lived in a circle: get fucked up, get-unfucked up, repeat.
The only reason he wasn’t dead was because of his roommate staying up with him into the night to make sure he didn’t choke on his own vomit. Rhodey was good like that.
And when Tony tried to tell him he didn’t have to save him, that he wasn’t worth the trouble, Rhodey would say something like, “If you stopped making trouble, then there wouldn’t be any trouble,” (Tony knew he didn’t really mind keeping him alive, it was just seeing his friend be sick all the time when he didn’t have to be that bothered him) and keep on taking care of poor, alcoholic Tony like there was nothing to it.
He’d been hungover when the police knocked on his door that one morning.
Sliding all his vodka bottles out of view onto the floor beneath his bed was no easy task to accomplish in just a few seconds, but he’d had practice over the thousands of dorm searches over the years.
He didn’t know what exactly they police were there for, though he was confident it couldn’t be helped by seeing a liquor store in some apartment ridiculously nice for a kid his age.
The last thing he remembered thinking, before he pulled open the door and saw their somber faces and just knew, was about how he hoped his breath didn’t reek.
“It was a car crash,” the officers informed him after getting out the initial “Your parents are dead—sorry!” speech.
Tony didn’t move, even after they left. He watched them drive off into the distance, staring at the wheels and the bumpers and how together the whole machine was. How alive the people inside it were.
How dead his mom was. And his dad but. It wasn’t as important.
Rhodey found him. Still standing in the doorframe, one hand curled around his stomach (like he was trying to keep himself together) and his eyes wide, unseeing (like he was falling apart anyways.)
“Tony?” Rhodey had called, hurrying out of his little piece of shit Toyota Tony couldn’t convince him to quit. Even when he offered to pay for it, not because Tony thought the car was ugly (though it was), but because it wasn’t safe. Rhodey said he’d take the money if Tony would quit drinking. And Rhodey was still driving the Toyota, so one is free to draw one’s own conclusions about that. When Rhodey got closer, saw the look on his shell shocked face, he just asked gently, “What’s wrong? Why are you—“
“My mom,” Tony blurted. He didn’t really feel like he was in control of his own mouth, but it moved anyway. “My— my parents. They, uh. They…” And for all his genius, he couldn’t get the words together in his head. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t click right. All he could get out was, “It was a car crash, Rhodey. And they… They didn’t—“
His friend’s face flickered with comprehension. Like he could make sense of it, even though Tony couldn’t. Sympathy spread across his features, too, but Tony couldn’t make sense of that really either.
“Let’s get inside, Tones,” Rhodey had said, hands reaching out to touch him. The pressure was grounding, but Tony was still somewhere else. Somewhere far away, where things made sense and his mom wasn’t dead. “You need some water and—“
His knees gave out as if they could no longer bear the weight of Tony’s body. Maybe they couldn’t. He didn’t even brace for the fall, just waited to collide with the ground because at the very least, physics was supposed to still make sense.
But Rhodey caught him before gravity could do its work. After his first year of air force training and drills, he was strong. Stronger than Tony’s stupid fucking legs.
“Easy, buddy,” Rhodey cautioned, tightening his grip around a suddenly hysterical Tony. “It’s alright, I’ve got you.”
And he did. Tony was practically screaming into Rhodey’s shoulder where his best friend had him cradled, and he managed to carry them both surprisingly graceful back into their apartment.
“My mom—“ Tony choked out through lungs that had never felt more unsteady. Jesus Christ, the whole world just shook and fell apart. “My mom is—“
“I know, Tony,” Rhodey said, voice steady, and it made Tony calm just a little to hear the meaningless platitude. “I know.”
Somehow, some way that Tony was beyond being able to wonder about, he ended up settled on the couch. But when he tried to curl up into himself; muffle the pathetic sobs of pain into their snack-stained cushions, Rhodey wouldn’t let him. He picked up Tony’s head, slid into the seat, and then laid him back down on his lap. Reached for his shaking hand and held it in his steady one.
Tony, who was usually too proud to accept comfort especially of the physical variety, just fell apart. He was too weak to brush Rhodey off, make up some lie about how he’d be okay, get him to stop combing his fingers through Tony’s hair like how his mom and Jarvis had when he was young. He clung tight to Rhodey that night, and Rhodey, not because he wanted Tony’s money or prestige but because he loved and cared for him like a big brother he never had, clung tight to him.
There’s no question about it. There’s no doubt in his mind that Tony wouldn’t have gotten through the grief if not for Rhodey.
Rhodey didn’t try to make sense out of it for him. He didn’t try to put any of it to words, and Tony loved him for that. When the whole world came up to him (in grocery stores, at parties, mid-funeral) wanting to know just what the hell the world was going to do without their best weapons supplier, Rhodey was by his side to give him the only genuine answer: no answer at all.
Even when Tony asked, Rhodey knew he didn’t really want to know.
Tony, once drunk off his ass because he couldn’t bear to stay sober more than twenty minutes those first few weeks after burying them, had grabbed Rhodey by the collar of his shirt. He wound his fist in the lapels and shook his best friend as hard as he could (albeit, his grip was weak for a variety of reasons, mainly malnutrition) and demanded, “Why are my parents dead, Rhodey?”
Rhodey had just stared into Tony’s tear-filled eyes, gaze unwaveringly patient. Accepting. Everything Tony was not at the moment, because he couldn’t wait to either die or see his mom show up at the door. And neither were going to happen, but that memo wouldn’t get through his thick fucking skull.
It got through Rhodey’s, though. Rhodey understood.
So that night, and every other night that Tony tried to pull himself back from the grief by running into the arms of whatever rager was being thrown, Rhodey waited. He stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, even if he had school the next day, to take care of Tony. He put water down his throat, food into his stomach, sleep into his brain. And he didn’t say anything. Even when Tony was screeching profanities, crying out, “Maria!” in the dead of night, throwing up on Rhodey’s shoes, he was silent. Steady.
Tony was never really good with the quiet, which was in part why the anger he felt nearly killed him at times. Death was quiet. He shouted for answers, pleaded for a reason. He could get his father--- the man had it coming for more reasons than one. But his mom? She was a victim that never even got out from under the claws of her abuser. She didn’t even get the chance.
So Tony screamed at Death, because none of it made sense and god damn it all if Tony fucking Stark, the great and terrible genius, couldn’t make sense out of reality. He begged and he begged, wondering how the fuck something as awful as this can happen and no one ever gets to know why.
Death didn’t respond other than to caress his face when he visited their graves, reminding him of her inevitability. Reminding him that if he was lucky, he would someday leave someone without answers, too.
But Tony wasn’t lucky. If he was, he wouldn’t be leaving flowers by his mother’s headstone every Sunday of the year.
Rhodey would go with him quite a lot. He’d only ever met Maria in passing if she came by to the apartment for Tony, and a few times at school funding events that she philanthropated at. But he came with Tony; drove him in his new car that Tony bought him (Rhodey gave in pretty easy when Tony started talking about the safest models at the dealership) and stood a few feet back while his best friend talked to his mom.
The few times that Tony talked to his father were the worst.
Once, about six months after the accident had happened and Tony was beginning to overcome the very worst of the grief, they’d come to visit the cemetery. It began the same as it always did; Tony telling his mom how things were (even if things were objectively awful, he’d say he was doing alright) and giving her the general “love and miss you” speel.
But Tony was feeling a little more angry than usual that day. And he looked over at his father’s headstone; saw that someone had placed cherry-red roses on Howard’s tombstone.
Something in him snapped.
“How are you doing, Howard?” Tony spat, glaring at the part of the stone that described him as a loving husband and father. “You still kicking the shit out of Mom in heaven? Better yet, is that your personal heaven?”
“Tony---” Rhodey had said from somewhere above him, a cautionary edge to his voice. But Tony was angry. And he wasn’t even anywhere close to done, yet.
“You know, Dad, the most pathetic part of all of this is I’m grieving you, too. Mom makes sense.” He shrugged, as if making an allowance. “But you? You fucking hated me.” The laugh that ripped out of him was acidic; burned like bile, but it was all kind of funny, wasn’t it? Funny in the way that isn’t funny at all? Funny in the way that it hurts like hell every waking moment of his stupid life? “You hated me and wished I’d never been born, both things you legitimately said to me at some point--- and I still want to see you one last time.”
After an awkward silence filled only with the sound of Tony’s ugly sobbing, Rhodey suggested, “Let’s go home, man.”
And when Tony didn’t get up, when Death was pressing her bleak lips to the side of his face and he was too weak to do anything but cry, Rhodey just picked him up on his shoulder and carried him home.
Rhodey was good like that.
------------------------------------
“You miss me, Pep?” Tony asked, strutting off the plane that carried him from a cave in Afghanistan (his own personal hell, really) back to Malibu (his own personal heaven.)
And Pepper had smiled. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but loving when they looked right through him. Right at the new man he was when death came calling for him once again.
“Only a little,” she’d laughed. The sound was sweet like the strawberries she was allergic to, and Tony felt almost overcome. He wasn’t supposed to have heard that laugh ever again. But he did. Because he lived. God knows why, but he lived. “I hate job hunting.”
“And I hate not having a crowd of adoring Americans to welcome me home,” he shot back, grinning although he didn’t really want to. He was thinking of Yinsen. His last words weighed heavy on Tony’s mind, try as he might to think of anything else. They were gonna make him do something crazy. “Call a press conference for me, would you?”
Don’t waste your life, Stark.
Don’t waste it.
Tony wouldn’t have blamed Pepper if she decided to leave. He was a mess, maybe even worse than after his parents died, and though he tried his best to avoid it, he still dragged everyone through the mud with him. Pepper’s immaculate hands were getting dirty.
She almost left. Not out of self interest or lack of work ethic, but because Tony really was killing himself. Pepper was many, many things (most of them wonderful). Stupid wasn’t one of them. She saw straight through his armor, both literal and physical; saw the death creeping up over him like ivy in a garden.
“I can’t watch you do this, Tony,” she’d told him one night when he came home with bullets embedded in the suit. “I’m not gonna stay here and watch you die. I won’t.”
Tony didn’t look up from where he was making some much needed repairs to his mask. He didn’t want to see her face, read the premature grief there. See himself in what he thought was so beautiful. “Then go.”
“You know I can’t,” she scoffed, voice strained. He chanced a glance up at her then, and was met by an angry, tear-filled gaze.
“No,” he countered. She was right. She couldn’t be around him for much longer, not if she was going to live the long and lovely life Tony wanted so badly for her. It burned like hell in his heart but he knew he was doing it to protect her when he said, callous and cold, “I don’t see why you can’t. Door is to your left.”
She was unmoved. For the briefest second, her face was a blank slate. Then she exploded, “Can you cut the bullshit act for ten fucking seconds? Or are you physically fucking incapable?”
“Look, Miss Potts,” he began, finally throwing the mask onto the desk. His hands were shaking. Fuck. He was trying to do the right thing. He’d done the wrong thing for as long as he could remember, and he had to make it right. He didn’t have a choice. “I just—“
“Don’t you fucking ‘Miss Potts’ me! You think— you think that what you do only affects you? That other people don’t give a shit?”
Something heavy twisted in his stomach.
“No,” he said, slow and calm. The last thing Tony wanted was to argue with her. He wasn’t angry in the slightest, just sad they’d become friends. Because it was going to ruin her when all this shit finally caught up to him, if she didn’t leave now. “I set this path for myself. This is my life’s work. I’m responsible—“
“Not everything is about you, Tony! You’re going to get yourself killed!”
And didn’t he fucking know that? Didn’t he know how he wanted to earn a little domesticity for himself some day? Love a man enough to marry him and maybe have a kid to top it all off like this is some fucked up fairytale sundae? He wanted it in the soul of who he was, but he couldn’t have it. Not after everything he’d done.
Not before everything he still had to do.
“If that’s what it takes, Pep,” he said, staring at her expression. She looked furious of course, but more than that. Scared. He softened a little, slumping into his chair in defeat. “I don’t want to die,” he quietly admitted. “But I know— I just know, that I have to keep doing this. Call it cosmic or call me crazy, but it’s like destiny. I don’t have a choice. I can’t stop. I’m sorry.” He watched with abruptly watering eyes (Jesus, Tony, pull it together) as her face resolved into some sad kind of sympathy. And goddamn him, he really started crying then. “I’m sorry, Pep. I am. I’m—“
“Oh, Tony,” she sighed, setting down her briefcase so her arms were free to wrap around him. She just threaded one hand through his hair and cradled the other around the back of his neck; pushing his sobs against the soft sweater around her stomach. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t want to—“ he gasped when he could, but his lungs ached where they pressed against the stupid hunk of metal in his chest and it all hurt and Death was rubbing her hands on his shoulders and he was scared, goddammit. “I don’t. I don’t want to die, Pep— but I think— I think I’m gonna have to and I’m—“
Terrified. Not ready.
Was anyone ever?
Was Jarvis ready? Maria? Howard? Yinsen?
Death slow kissing up his ear told him they weren’t.
“You’re okay, Tony,” Pepper assured, breaking him from his thoughts. She didn’t tell him he would be, or deny his logic because neither of them were idiots. They both knew he was right. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” There was a pause, and Pepper went still. “Tony? Can you just promise me something, though?”
“Yeah, Pep?” he said once he finally gotten the handle on the sniffles. Jesus, if she wasn’t one of his very closest friends, he might be making a beeline for the window out of mortal shame right about then. Still considered it.
Her breath hitched a little, and Tony felt his fragile, unfortunately existent heart break when she whispered, “Promise me that you’re not going to regret it in the end.”
They didn’t have to elaborate. Tony knew “it” was giving up a normal life to be a metal man, never settling down, never being safe.
And how could he regret it when it was the only thing he could do?
“I promise,” he said, pulling back from her and standing up on shaky legs to make his resolve more prominent. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”
She laughed a little at that; the sound wet and teary.
“Oh, god. That’s usually what you say right before something explodes.”
—————————-
Tony lived in a cloud of death and darkness.
The mistakes of the past came back to visit like old friends. He could never turn them away— inviting them into his mind whenever they came knocking.
That’s why he needed Peter Parker. He was the opposite. He was new life and light.
“Comin’ up behind you, Mister Stark!” the kid called, whooping while he swung past way too fast for Tony’s liking around the skyscraper.
“Hey— be careful, okay? The buildings rigged to blow at the moment, Macgyver, so just chill out.” Cutting the power to his thrusters, Tony lowered himself onto the roof
“They’re time bombs,” Peter scoffed, insulted by his mentor’s concern, undoubtedly convinced he didn’t need it. “We’ve got like ten minutes, it’s fine.”
“Don’t talk back to your old man. I’m feeble and tired,” Tony shot back, but there was no real heat in his tone. He loved that kid like he was his own (and wasn’t he, by now?) Peter knew it, too, if his light laugh crackling through the comms was anything to go by. “So what’s your plan, kid?”
FRIDAY pulled up the schematics of the skyscraper before the two. Thirty-five stories, seven bombs placed on different levels. The block and surrounding buildings had been cleared so collateral damage wasn’t a worry.
The quick briefing they’d been given from SHIELD stated some maniac had planted explosives in the place because apparently, he loved his job in tech support so much that when he lost it (over playing Tetris at his desk all the time), it really ruined his life. Luckily, as it was Sunday, only about a hundred people were currently occupying the corporate headquarters. But it was still a hundred people with lives and families.
God. Sometimes Tony really, really hated nerds. Origin story be damned.
“We could deactivate the bombs?” Peter suggested, pulling him out of his less-than-satisfactory self-reflection. “You get the ones on the top and I’ll—“
“No, it’s too risky,” Tony interrupted. God, what he’d become. His younger self wouldn’t recognize the paranoid old man that Peter (because Jesus, the kid was a danger magnet and if anything happened to him, Tony didn’t know what he would do) had made him. “We don’t know if that’s even possible.”
“No, we don’t,” Peter agreed, sounding confusingly smug. When Tony looked over at him questioningly, he was met by the spider suit’s happy white eyes. “But I do.”
Tony’s screen was then filled with diagnostics he hadn’t ordered. Sent over from Peter’s AI, he realized.
“You’re a real smart ass, you know that? Who taught you to be like this?”
“Take a lucky guess,” Peter said, humor evident in his tone. “Look, Karen has cleared them. They’re standard, and they’re not anything fancy. We can just get everyone out, go in, cut the right wires, and make it home in time to watch the new—“
“I emotionally cannot handle another episode of ‘This is Us’, Pete,” he cut in. Tony thought it over, analyzing risk and reward in the way he’d got very used to doing since he started the whole superhero thing. With a heavy sigh, he gave in. “Alright. Let’s do this.”
“Yes! Yes, okay, I’ll get the thingies on the bottom, you take the top!” The kid, cheerfully bouncing, swung out a web and vanished at being given the all clear.
“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” Tony joked, trying to ignore the stinging afterthought that came with it. Tried not to think of Steve.
It didn’t much work.
He’d loved Steve for a long time. Maybe his whole life. Sometimes it felt like longer. And for a while there, Tony had himself fooled that maybe America’s hottest super soldier (full offense intended to the man who murdered his mom) could love him back.
But then the Accords had happened. Civil war. Siberia. That fucking shield stuck in his aching chest only to be wrenched back out till he was defenseless.
He remembered looking up at Steve.
He remembered looking into those starry blue eyes that held a new andromeda in them, turned into black holes threatening to pull Tony towards his demise.
He remembered thinking, ‘this better be a clean fucking blow and a fast death, Rogers— I think I’ve earned that much.’
The cell phone was a lead weight in his pocket. A heavy, little memento so he would always be reminded of how pathetic he was. How pitiful, because he knew if it ever rang, he’d answer.
But Steve didn’t love him back. So the phone never rang.
“How’s it going over there, Mister Stark?” Peter’s voice abruptly shouted over the comm line, startling Tony almost bad enough to fuck up the intricate bomb disassembling he’d been doing without even thinking about it. He didn’t even remember getting into the building. Jesus Christ. Steve should have another shot at killing him. He’s practically useless, at this point. “I’ve got two down, working on the third.”
“Good work, kid,” he commended, snipping his last red wire as he did so. A sense of satisfaction filled him when he saw the clock stop ticking at five minutes. They still had five minutes, thank God, because apparently, Tony couldn’t focus on anything unless it was six foot and unfairly handsome as fuck. “I’m wrapping up my second one.”
“Do you need help?” Peter asked, eager and surprisingly unpatronizing. He’s such a good kid, Tony thought with a swell of affection. “I’m pretty fast at this so—“
“Worry about yours, and come help me with mine later,” Tony cut in. Given the opportunity, Spider-Man could ramble for hours. “These teenagers and their technology…”
“... That is vastly superior, thanks, I agree,” Peter said, obviously trying to get a playful rise out of him. Tony smiled despite his best efforts.
“You’re distracting me from reaching sonic speeds while I’m disassembling my sixth bomb,” Tony lied, having just reached the floor with the next detonator, hoping to shift them back to focus through Peter’s compulsive, competitive need to be the fastest.
“You’re so funny, Mister Stark,” Peter said, deadpan, though Tony could hear him working a little faster over the comm line. “Anyone ever tell you that you should be a stand-up—“
The sudden sound of Peter’s breath hitching echoed in Tony’s ear, and that made him anxious. Call him an overprotective dad, but it didn’t set right with him. He knew like an instinct that something had gone wrong. Very, very wrong.
“Pete? You okay?” Tony asked, tentative. When there was no response, he continued, firmer, “Peter? Come in. What’s—“
“I fucked up,” the kid choked out abruptly, sounding scared. Which in turn, scared the living hell out of Tony. “I— Mister Stark— I cut the wrong wire.” Every hair on the end of Tony’s body stood on edge. Oh fuck. “We don’t have time, we don’t have time, I have to do something. I have to do something.”
“No, you need to get out of here,” Tony demanded, voice much steadier than he felt. They didn’t know how strong the bombs were, whether or not the protection of their uniforms would save them. And he would never, ever take a chance if it was a bet on Peter’s safety. “I’m almost done with mine, I’ll deal with yours, just get the hell out of—“
“There are children in the building, Tony!” Peter interrupted, and oh fuck. Oh fuck. The kid never called him by his first name. But then, an audible calm came over the comms. Tony knew what that meant. Peter was calming because he had an idea. An idea Tony was going to hate, no doubt. “I’m gonna cover the bomb with my suit— it might be enough—“
Tony can say, without a doubt, that was the worst idea he had ever heard.
“No!” Tony yelled, a visceral panic filling him at even the thought of his kid exposed, open to the explosives, eaten by the fire or blown through the windows. “Abso-fucking-lutely not! Do you hear me, Parker? Don’t you dare—“
“Karen, activate Snake Skin protocol,” Peter murmured, not trying to speak over Tony’s deafening protests, beyond justifying himself. He’d made up his mind. And Tony, elbow deep in a bomb that would blow instantaneously if he stopped what he was doing, was powerless to do anything but shout.
Protocol Snake Skin was something they’d built together after Tony’s first breakthrough with nanotechnology. At Peter’s command, he could remove the suit and apply it to fit over whatever person (or object) he wanted to cover.
In retrospect, he felt a little like he built Peter his own death trap.
Rushing to finish deactivating a delicate explosive is rarely, if ever, a good plan. But Tony could say without a doubt in his mind that he was the most desperate he’d ever been, and he finished in a fury as a result.
Without any hesitation, he blasted down through the floors by sheer force, feeling the carpet and ceilings shatter around him, unphased because that was his fucking kid, who gives half a shit about whether or not there’s an iron-man shaped hole?
“FRIDAY, what floor is he on?” Tony demanded, not daring to let up on his descent.
“Two down, boss.” And that was good enough for him as he broke through the last couple walls, nearly crashing himself through the next one but regaining his footing before that could happen.
And just in the nick of time, too.
Tony saw him. The scene was silent. Serene. Peter was freshly out of the suit, if the ends of the armor retreating from his fingertips were anything to go by. He was kneeling, coaxing the metal around the black package in the corner.
Steady tears fell from the corners of those big, young, eyes.
And when Tony felt death budge past him like someone slipping through a crowd (headed for his Peter, headed for his sun and stars), he didn’t think. He just flew as fast as he could, until his hands were around the kid, cradling him into his armored shoulder, clutched tight in his metal hands and they were racing towards the exit.
It was quiet for one more second. Then chaos.
The explosion ripped, muffled, but strong enough to rattle air and shatter the windows, enveloping the room in a blistering heat. Tony lost control almost instantaneously as the impact reverberated through the space. He started to spiral into the floor (Peter still protected, albeit exposed) right before they made it out.
Tony couldn’t maintain his grip. And he tried. He tried to hold on, but an airborne desk slammed into his side and it shook him so hard he couldn’t feel his hands and
the momentum had Peter falling.
Falling out the twenty story window while Tony watched him, as if in slow motion; the kid’s innocent eyes blown wide, face an expression of pure, instinctual terror. The face of someone seeing death.
His kid was going to die.
“No!” Tony had screamed, dislodging the debris around him and shooting out from under it with one single minded focus. One mission.
And Tony wondered how he thought anything had ever mattered (his own mortality, his worries about heaven and hell, whether or not life itself was worth the pain of living) before this, because it was crystal clear to him in that moment that none of it meant anything if death caught his kid before Tony did.
None of it meant anything if Peter goddamned Parker died today.
Tony spotted him instantaneously, plummeting through the sky, limbs flailing, screaming, nearing the pavement with every wasted second. Without a second thought, he shot the suit’s thrusters down, angled towards the ground Peter was so rapidly approaching.
“Hang on, kid!” he’d yelled, hoping the speakers were loud enough to carry his voice through the raging wind. He doubted it, but he couldn’t stop himself. Peter had to know he was coming, had to know he wasn’t going to die, had to never feel the same demon Tony did, and never understand what it felt like to break all the bones in his body against the hard cement. “Almost there!”
And by some miracle of God, or chance, or science, or aerodynamics, or astrology, or whatever was in control in that moment, Tony caught him.
The weight of the stupid, stupid teenager that he loved so much was the sweetest thing in the world as Tony careened them away from the waiting scene of EMTs and police officers. They didn’t need that.
He just took off towards the tower as fast as he could, desperate to get them both on solid ground, but slowed their speed when he heard Peter’s small hitching breaths and whimpers.
Poor kid, though he seemed to grasp what was going on, was scared out of his mind.
“You’re alright, bud,” Tony said, trying to keep the shake out of his voice from the leftover adrenaline and just failing. “You’re fine, we’re fine, I promise. We’re almost home. Almost home, just hold on, okay?”
Tony wasn’t expecting a response but he was grateful to hear one. “O-okay.”
It was a short flight, and so he hardly had any time to pull himself together before they were landing on the balcony, but he did his best. Took a deep breath, attempted to quiet Death who was screaming her want in his ear. She wanted the boy in his arms. She liked him.
For the first time in his life, Tony was braver than her. Because Peter belonged to the living. He belonged with Tony, and his Aunt, and his friends. In that moment and any moment after that could endanger the loss of that, he was stronger than death. Better.
There was no force powerful enough. He was confident.
Exiting the suit required him to let go of Peter for a second, and in that second, the kid tried to collapse. Tony caught him before he could, slinging him up into a bridal carry, predicting and thus far not being made upset when the action was met by weak protests.
“I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m okay,” Peter muttered. Tony looked down at his face and saw he wouldn’t even open his eyes. He wasn’t convinced.
“You’re not,” Tony disagreed, hushing him gently. “But you will be.”
Because he couldn’t lose Peter. He wouldn’t.
Death be damned.
He wouldn’t.
—————————
The worst had happened, and Tony was broken under the weight of it.
‘Worst’ wasn’t a strong enough word.
‘Worst’ couldn’t describe what it felt like.
Because he’d lost his kid.
He’d lost Peter.
Tony hardly gave half a shit when a glowing woman carried them through space; maybe even hoped he’d fall into a wakeless sleep before they got home. Because he had left Peter. Peter wasn’t coming home with him.
He didn’t sleep, but he dreamt. He dreamt with his eyes open. He probably should have seen Peter falling into ash, felt the phantom press of his desperate hands, but he didn’t much dream of him.
No.
Tony dreamt of Steve.
Space wasn’t as beautiful. Streaking through the stars and supernovas couldn’t compare to what it had felt like when Steve had pressed his lips upon Tony’s— couldn’t hold half a candle to what it felt like to be told “I love you” and have it be sincere.
They’d had that once.
It was simple. It was sweet. Slow dancing in their bedroom to forties music, laughing low and soft.
“Heaven, I’m in heaven,” Steve had sung along, swaying them back and forth. He shifted Tony’s hand till it was resting over his chest, and Tony couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be. “And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.”
“And I seem to find the happiness I seek,” Tony continued, reveling in the feeling of Steve’s strong arms dipping them low. Knowing what that did to Tony (God, wasn’t he entitled to hourly reminders of just how buff his boyfriend was), hearing the audible little gasp he did at the move, Steve grinned. Cheeky bastard.
“When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek,” Steve finished, all in that lovely low register that drove Tony fucking nuts.
Anticipating him, because it honestly felt like Steve knew Tony better than he knew himself most days, he closed the gap between them; pressing his lips ever so softly against Tony’s in a gentle, loving kiss.
He didn’t dream of Siberia.
But he dreamt of Steve.
So when they landed, and Nebula took him in hand to lead them out upon the grass (it felt like years since he’d seen anything but red dust), he assumed it was still a dream. Because Steve was there, running up towards him like he couldn’t stand the distance.
Like he still loved him.
“Tony!” Steve shouted, sounding far louder and more vivid than he had been in Tony’s other dreams. Maybe he was just further down the hallucinogenic line, Tony figured. “Oh, God—“
Then he felt Steve touch him. Felt the same old flame of love and pain engulf him. Felt Steve hold him up by the waist and by his arm, keeping him secure. Safe.
And Tony knew he wasn’t dreaming anymore.
“I lost the kid,” were the first words out of his mouth. As if they’d been sitting under his tongue all this time, waiting to be understood. Nebula tried, but she didn’t quite get it. “I couldn’t stop him, I…”
Steve, though— Steve understood, if the cracked falling of his (beautiful, beautiful, so much more beautiful than any star) face was anything to go by.
“Tony,” Steve began, and wasn’t that a fucking gut punch to hear his name, spoken in the voice that was once so righteous now so broken. He looked at Tony, and he looked at him with breathtaking grief. “We lost—- we lost. All of us.”
It didn’t quite make sense.
But Tony understood.
……….
The next few months passed slowly. Painfully.
Like a broken bone that would never be set was forced to heal in a new, awkward, not-right-this-was-never-supposed-to-happen shape.
But they put a cast around it. Because they were the Avengers. They had to pretend, at least publically, that they weren’t aching just as bad or maybe even worse than everyone else.
Tony couldn’t take any more pain than was already on his plate. It gnawed at his bones every waking moment, making him wish so fervently that he’d been turned into ash floating on the wind, too.
But he wasn’t. So the day he got out of medical from the malnutrition and poor oxygenation, he drank. He drank, and he didn’t stop.
Didn’t stop until FRIDAY finally overwrote her protocol to allow in one worried-out-of-his-fucking-mind-are-you-kidding-me-tony supersoldier.
“Tony,” Steve had gasped in horror, looking around at the frankly incredible amount of empty bottles rattling against each other on the floor. Even Tony was a little impressed with himself. “What did you do?”
“I think the better question…” he had begun, but the sound of his mouth was muffled by the floor beneath him. Huh. He didn’t remember falling. Didn’t really remember half the things he did that night. “... Is what did you do?”
“What are you talking about?” The sympathetic voice came closer, and he heard then felt Steve prop him upright on the desk behind him. It felt weird. He almost started laughing. “What’s so funny?”
Oh, shit. Maybe he was laughing.
“I just—“ Tony started, only to break off in giggles. Didn’t they always say that laughing was in really close proximity to sobbing one’s ass off. “This is hilarious, isn’t it?”
“What’s ‘it’, Tony?”
“Rememb’r when we fought?” Tony finally got out, huffing a little as he did so. He was almost too drunk to not notice how Steve tensed at that, but he noticed. When he reached for a bottle to rectify the situation, however, his fingers were just encased in Steve’s warm hand. Imprisoned.
“I do,” Steve said, solemn.
“How in the everlasting fuck… Did we— did we ever think that ever even mattered, Steve?”
A pregnant, questioning pause filled the air before Steve asked, obviously confused, “I don’t think I’m following?”
“My kid is— my kid is dead. Your best friend—“ Tony felt Steve’s fingers try to pull away, but he was weak and drunk so he held tight, “is dead. Vision is gone and. And we— we lost. We lost.” Steve was silent, waiting for him to continue, still not quite understanding. “After we lost this much I can’t— I can’t lose you, and it’s so funny because. Because I already lost you, haven’t I?” Tony watched as his ex-lover’s face fell, unguarded and vulnerable. He looked so soul crushingly sad that he almost regretted speaking his mind. But he knew he was right. He just wanted to hear him say it. “Haven’t I?”
Steve shook his head, violent, passionate. “No, Tony. Never.”
The genius, though inebriated off his ass, wasn’t a complete idiot and therefore wasn’t convinced. “Then why— why didn’t you ever call me?”
“Because I thought I lost you, not the other way around,” Steve said, moving their hands closer together without even realizing it as he spoke. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I made a mistake because I lied to you and I’m so, so sorry, I love—“
“Don’t,” Tony broke in, voice cracking. He couldn’t take it. He could apparently take a lot more than he thought, but he knew without a doubt in his mind he couldn’t fucking handle this. “Don’t tell me you love me because—“
And oh fuck, the last rounds of shots really hit him then. Spinning the world up and over around itself, though Steve stayed perfect and beautiful and sad and undistorted in front of him, looking like someone just kicked his puppy and that someone was himself and it all was really hurting now and Tony was too drunk to think around it.
“Why? Why not, Tony?” Steve questioned, sounding fucking heartbroken and way to go Tony you’re about to make Captain fucking America cry. “It’s true. I mean it, I love—“
“Because if you’re lying… This is it, you’re my. You’re gonna be my only hope, Steve, because I love you and if you don’t mean that you love me then. Then when I find out I’m gonna—“
They’ll never know what he would do. Steve’s gentle, mouth on Tony’s stole the answer.
And that’s alright. They didn’t ever end up needing it.
……
It was a bloody, long year, but they’d done it.
They’d gathered back those stupid fucking stones, Bruce had snapped those big green fingers, and they were there. The world was coming alive with faces Tony had never seen but knew from the reactions of those around them that they weren’t ever expected to be seen again.
They’d done it.
It was impossible, and it came with side effects (namely a homicidal Titan and his unfortunately large army.) But they’d done it anyway.
And it was worth it, because Tony heard a voice. The voice that made him invent time travel, shift realities, move the world over just to hear it again.
“Mister Stark?”
Peter.
Oh, God.
Peter.
The kid was rambling nonsense in the same way he always did, asking dumb little questions about his hair and what he’d been doing but Tony just grabbed him.
Held his kid tight, and knew every sacrifice they’d ever made to get to this point was worth it. Because Peter was in his arms. Safe. Sound.
“Oh, this is nice,” he’d said, drawing a near hysterical laugh out of Tony.
“I missed you, bud.” Though he’d be content to hug him for hours and never let him get close to danger ever again, Tony knew the action wouldn’t wait for them any longer than it had. So he just planted a quick kiss on the side of Peter’s cheek, ruffled his big, brown curls, and went back to the fight with a new found vigor.
Now, he was fighting to keep what he had. Not avenge what he lost.
So when he saw Strange raise his hand, let him know this was their only chance, Tony didn’t think twice.
He knew it was going to kill him. He felt death, his life-long lover rub her hands up his shoulders to tell him she was coming.
And Tony wanted a different endgame.
Because he’d won. He had the most wonderful son (Peter), the most caring family (Pepper, Rhodey.) And he had had the best love. He had Steve.
He had the life, if only for just one fucking moment before he was going to lose it, that he’d wanted years ago when he knew this was how he was going to die.
But he kept his promise to Pepper.
He didn’t regret it.
“I. Am. Ironman.”
He took that big, beautiful life for all it was. And made a victory out of it.
Peter told him as much, though Tony couldn’t thank him. The stones had taken their toll. He was just a man, in the end, after all.
A dying man who loved each and every person around him at the moment.
Tony had believed his whole life that luck favors the prepared. Anyone shocked to know he had a plan in place for this kind of situation didn’t know him at all.
FRIDAY activated the “EDWIN JARVIS” protocol he’d made so long ago, when death was just a little daydream. But it was here now. Quiet.
But here
“Sir.” JARVIS’ somber, calm voice (and oh god, how he’d missed him, couldn’t wait to see him soon in that kingdom they told him about when he was a kid) echoed in his comm ear. “It’s a pleasure to be with you now.”
If Tony could speak, he’d return the sentiment.
Rhodey came first, landed soft on the earth, flipped up his face plate. He was so steady. Strong. Silent. Just as he’d always been when Tony needed him to be. He didn’t try to talk. He knew there was nothing that needed to be said, no words that could be put to this. They both knew what one another meant.
Stay safe.
See you on the other side.
Take care of them. Same as you did for me.
I will. I promise.
Pepper was the next to arrive, and she didn’t say much either. Just her classic, “Oh, Tony.” A watery grin that was somehow as sincere as it was sad.
“Pep,” he tried to whisper, but his lips were far away. His whole body was far away, and drifting farther each moment. “Pep, I…”
“It’s okay.” Thick tears rolled down her cheeks, slipping into the corners of her smiling mouth. “We’re all gonna be okay, now. Thank you, Tony.”
Pepper had never lied to him. Pepper loved him too much for that. And he knew she knew how much he loved her.
Peter came next, and he was young. It was only natural to be scared. Confused. Tony once felt the same, what feels like a million years ago.
“We won, Mister Stark,” the kid had cried, holding his good hand (though he couldn’t really feel the pressure, he was comforted nonetheless.) “Dad— We won, Tony. We won…”
Rhodey caught Petey before he could fall, and that was how Tony knew it’d be alright. Rhodey had been around this block before. He’d know how to help, how to keep his kid safe. They’d be just fine. Tony was comfortable in the knowledge that he was leaving his sun and his stars with the people that’d never let him burn out.
And Steve.
Steve, with the andromedas in his irises.
Steve was last.
Steve found him, and for all his credit, he didn’t cry. Just kneeled beside him, put one big, warm palm on the side of his face that wasn’t burned and the other where the arc was. Held him so steady. Laid the softest of kisses on his unmoving mouth.
“Tony,” Steve has said, gazing at him with more love than Tony had ever seen in anyone’s eyes. It was amazing. And it was somehow for him. “Can you look at me?”
Tony couldn’t. But he did. Because Steve had asked.
“You can rest now, Tony,” he whispered, smiling through the tears that streamed through the dirt and the mud of his face. “You did so well.”
Had he?
Tony looked around again, at his little family. They were all okay. They all would be okay in the world he’d helped to bring about.
And Steve was strong, alive. Just holding his hand.
“It’s time to go to sleep, Tony,” Steve said, laughing a little, the sound wet. A callback to all the nights they’d spent side by side. All the nights Tony had felt safe.
Death loomed over his shoulder, but he didn’t fear her.
He was safe.
“Goodnight, Tony.”
He drifted with no fear at all.
………………
The next five years are a blur. But to Tony, they are the most beautiful blur in the world.
Filled with tears and the taking downs of memorials and the reintegrations of life as it used to be.
It’s so beautiful.
No one’s quite sure how he survived. They took him to the hospital to pronounce him dead, but his heart started beeping before they could zip the body bag. Doctors say it was a miracle.
Steve says it was because he was just too stubborn to die.
Tony figures both have a ring of truth to them.
Regardless, the life he thought had ended went on. He built himself an iron arm, married the man he loved more than anyone else, and, well—
“Dad!” Maria calls, jostling him from where he’s sitting curled up on Steve’s lap. He ignores his husband’s huffs of amusement as he pulls himself upright, but apparently not fast enough for their human tornado of a daughter. “Dad! Dad! Dad!”
“Yeah, pumpkin!” he asks, wiping the sleep from his eyes. Goddamn. He loves his kid. He really does. But he also loves naps.
“Everybody’s here! Get up!” With that, little Maria Margaret Rogers-Stark takes off like a bat out of hell towards their little cabin door.
And Tony can’t help it. He just smiles.
“What are you smilin’ about?” Steve asks, but he’s smiling, too.
“Nothin,” Tony shrugs, pulling on the boots he keeps tucked beneath the couch because he’s domestic like that now. Once he’s got them good and laced, he turns over, kisses Steve on his stupidly beautiful bearded mouth and gets up. “I’m just happy. That’s all.”
Steve laughs, the sound soft and kind. “Me, too.”
Peter, Rhodey, and Pepper are just getting out of the car when he and Steve emerge from their quaint little abode, hand-in-metal-hand.
Their smiles get even bigger when they see each other.
“Mister Stark!” Peter beams (an adoring Maria already superglued to his leg), like he’s still the fifteen year old fanboy Tony met in Queens so long ago and not the top-of-his-motherfucking-class-at-MIT-Jesus-chrIST-is-tony-proud adult he’s grown into.
“Aren’t you old enough to be calling me Tony?” he asks, just to be an asshole. He knows Peter’s answer.
“Aren’t you smart enough to know when you’re beating a dead horse?”
They all laugh a little, breathing in the thick pine air on each inhale, and revel in how everything just feels alright.
Pepper and Rhodey embrace them as they arrive on the porch, hugging one another close.
It’s been a few months since they were all last together— life is busy for just about everyone except Steve and Tony, who’ve decided they’ve donated enough for the cause to earn the privilege of taking some hard-earned time off.
After everything they’ve done, the vast majority of the world is inclined to agree.
“Missed you, Tones,” Rhodey says, once they pull back. “Wilson is a fucking nightmare now that he doesn’t have anyone to match wits with.”
“Aw, come on, sugar bear. We both know you can hold your own.”
And Pepper, who is so wonderfully herself, has to conduct a full field interview before they can even hug.
“How are you, Tony?”
“I’m good, Pep. How are—“
“No, I mean really? Is everything fine?”
“Yes. Why do you always ask if—“
“What about you, Steve? Are you good?”
“Yes, ma’m. Everything is just—“
“And Maria? She’s not still having that cough, is she?”
“No, the antibiotics took care of her. She’s right as rain. Healthy as a horse.”
Satisfied, she finally smiles. Tugs them both in for a warm embrace that just makes Tony feel so impossibly whole.
“There better be something unhealthy for dinner,” she jokes as she steps into the house. “Bruce hasn’t been making anything except kale salad at the towers for weeks.”
“Don’t worry,” Tony placates, remembering just how awful some of the green concoctions his old friend made could taste. “Maria is on a real cheeseburger kick lately.”
“Wonder where she got that,” Steve muses sarcastically, slipping a sinfully beautiful glare Tony’s way.
And Tony just rolls his eyes, kisses him quick (for no other reason than just loving him) and pulls them inside.
The small family laughs the night away. They talk about Peter’s internship awkward moments, Pepper attempting to navigate the rescue armor, Rhodey’s idiot coworkers, Tony and Steve’s coincidentally best and worst parent moments till they’re all shedding happy tears. They talk all the way up until the early hours of the morning, and Maria’s fallen asleep in the crook of Tony’s neck, drooling down his shirt.
When he tucks her in, she mumbles, “I love you three-thousand.”
And when he comes out, thinking of his daughter, sees Pepper, Rhodey, Peter. Steve.
He knows he loves them even more.