There’s a lot of things Tony didn’t expect out of his life, many of which were life altering for him at the least, the world at the most. When the outbreak happened at first no one even noticed. Idiots blamed it on ‘them damn cell phones’- you could replace phones with video games, TV, or basically anything people with only a half a brain cell to spare blamed all the world’s problems on but it wasn’t that. Turns out, like most of he world’s problems it ended up being a rich guy who was arrogant enough to think he had the solution to the world’s problems.
Thanos was a real asshole, but Tony supposes he can rest easy knowing he dosed everyone and not just the poor, or people from countries that aren’t America, or immigrants, or some other disadvantaged group. It’s a shitty consolation prize. But when you control the water supply, well, you ensure you know what people drink. Relief teams were sent to places where the populations were on boil advisories, didn’t have water, or had water scarcity to ensure equality. Thanos’ words. Only half the population was supposed to be affected but Thanos’ formula was off. Predictably.
At first people’s reaction times just slowed, then they seemed to lose cognitive ability, and then- six months after the outbreak no one knew happened began- the nightmare fuel started. People started going rabid and predictably drugs were blamed. Maybe it was bath salts or meth or some new shit people said. It took three months for the world to fall and looking back on it Tony is impressed it held up that long.
The only place that wasn’t hit was Wakanda thanks to it being an isolationist nation and it ended up being more than what any of them knew. The technology was stunning even if it wasn’t enough. T’Challa, the king, is probably one of the best men Tony knew but opening the country up to fleeing refugees was a fatal mistake. They went through contamination chambers obviously but it wasn’t enough. No one knew about carriers at that point. No one knew it was Thanos at that point. So T’Challa graciously let them in and for that they destroyed his country completely by accident. Or at least that’s what they thought at first.
Within the country it results in a strict political divide between those that felt foreigners ruined the country and those that felt the affects of the zombie apocalypse was inevitable. It’s Shuri who ends up taking the sting out of the opposition accidentally. She, a man named Bruce Banner, and Tony has all been trying to track the disease when Shuri has found patient zero in Wakanda and, of all people, it’d been Nakia. That’s how they find carriers too, and ways to test for them. Bruce ends up being one. Shuri and Tony aren’t.
But telling a country of angry people it had been their queen, in an effort to stop human trafficking in Europe, that had tracked the disease in and infected three Dora Milaje, who had in turn infected people in their respective tribes took the notion of foreigners spreading the diease and put it on the back burner. Nakia had done nothing but try to help the world only to carry a disease back. It’s not even the first time a foreign contaminate has come back to Wakanda from a War Dog. Nakia handles this with more grace than Tony would.
Shuri’s next discovery is immunity and this is how Tony, in some twisted fate, finds out he’s immune. So is Shuri and T’Challa. Rhodey isn’t, but he’s not a carrier either. Pepper isn’t immune but she’s a carrier. That’s when they manage to isolate the formula, where it came from, and why in Wakanda things didn’t ever get as bad as they had in populated American cities, populated areas of everywhere else really. Wakanda’s water supply was uncontaminated.
Its Tony who figures out it had been Thanos. The work looked familiar and when Tony looked into Charles’ Xavier’s work he remembered why. They’d known each other for a time, back when they were both in school. He’d long ago died because his partner, Erik, had succumbed to the disease trying to save people and ended up eating a frankly shocking amount of them. Charles had been the one to kill him, which has to have been the most painful thing he’s ever done, and then his sister had to kill him when he’d been infected accidentally by Erik. The point though, was that his work in genetics is what spawned the whole thing though it appears he pulled out of Thanos’ project long before it reached the final stages of development. Charles had wanted to isolate genes to get rid of diseases that resulted in short, painful lives- not start a damn genocide.
Thanos had taken the work Charles had done, rudimentary at that time, and then expanded it. Long story short he figured out how to mutate genes through a poison in the water supply. That, at least, gives Shuri work to do as she tries to figure out how to test for the poison and then remove it. That’s difficult work when she doesn’t have the recipe. Looking back on it Tony is pretty sure this is where people got the faith in him that they do now. Thanos’ notes were in code and no one, not even Shuri or Bruce try as they might, could crack the code. But Tony figures it out, finds Thanos’ recipe, and gives Shuri the tools she needs to remove the contamination from the water.
That’s when they start the rescue missions.
*
It’s almost ten years after the apocalypse when Tony is granted a position he doesn’t want. People need a leader after T’Challa had an unfortunate accident in which he’d been eaten trying to rescue a group of people in south east Asia. They’d all gravitated upwards, landing in the Mediterranean parts of Europe to escape the harsh climate change. Turns out when a bunch of humans stop doing their jobs a lot of pollution happens and Wakanda got baked. So did most of the African continent. Asia suffered as well, and the northern parts of Europe were near inhabitable. They have no way to get to the Americas to know for sure, though they keep a metaphorical ear out for any radio transmissions of literally anything else. Shuri is a master engineer, but Tony is a master scavenger. Together they’ve recreated something of an approximation of Wakanda.
When Tony is all but shoved into the role of, as far as they knew, world leader, the first thing he does is ask Shuri if its possible to extract vibranium from Wakanda. It’d be a hot, treacherous trip but if its possible he knows how much better she is with the metal than anything they scavenge. She tells him it is, and then he tells her that he wants a council. If his life as taught him anything its that one person with too much power doesn’t end well. He’s been that person and he’s not T’Challa. He isn’t inartistically that good of a person. Nakia is the next person he asks to take a position, which she initially refuses because she thought he’d done it out of respect for T’Challa. He hadn’t- he’d just paid attention to the way T’Challa talked to her, sought her guidance. She gave good advice, considered things well even if she erred in the side of optimism.
Okoye had been an obvious choice, and Rhodey given that they both have military expertise and the damn zombies don’t rot nearly fast enough to not be a constant threat. Thanos’ stupid formula gone wrong. Not only was it more likely to affect eighty percent of the population, once they accounted for the way it spread, but it mutated shit enough that bodies didn’t rot like normal and they skipped the rigor stage entirely. Once you were infected and dead you were back to life with jaws snapping immediately. Fucking prick.
Pepper had been an obvious choice too- they’ve worked together for the better part of his life. He knows he can trust her, and she tends to balance Nakia’s more optimistic choices with her pragmatism. Bruce is invited along, he’d been instrumental in getting them to where they all are. Tony doesn’t like Steve much, but he knows people who disagree with him on things might be useful, and Steve is a natural leader. Natasha has military experience, and her sharp intelligence is invaluable. She’s not smart like Tony, but she’s still damn smart. Wanda had been found on a rescue mission. She’s traumatized, damaged, but she offers a perspective that’s unique and they need to know how to handle people who come back from places that are less put together than what they have.
All in all Tony does his best to gather the best and brightest to serve as a group of people to help in his decision making.
*
Its fifteen years after the world ends that Tony finds Nebula. She hadn’t wanted to admit she was Thanos’ daughter and maybe its because he’s suffered too, but he knows why before she admits to the abuse. And, Tony is sure, she doesn’t want to suffer for his crimes not that he’d ever allow that. They’re civilized people- Nebula wouldn’t be able to control Thanos’ actions no matter how hard she tried. He is, however, interested in one thing.
“Why?” he asks, the simple word ringing out loudly and almost painfully throughout the room he and his council are seated at.
Nebula, angry and bitter, looks away. “He thought the solution to having too many mouths to feed was to kill half the population. I’d say I wished he was alive to see it, but I find an obscene amount of joy in knowing he died at the hands of his own fucking plan,” she says harshly.