title from Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters"
Sometimes he feels like he closed his eyes. Like he spun a globe and pointed blindly, choosing a spot on a map without looking. To let fate decide where he should live out the rest of his days. As if fate's ever been kind to him.
It's rustic and homey and none of the things he thought he'd want but everything he needs and it's just as well that Pepper picks the decor. A woman's touch, or whatever. She unpacks boxes and finds a place for everything, everything in its place. She's got a talent for taking chaos and making a home out of it.
He thinks about fishing. When the water plays tag with the sun, a competition to see who is more blinding. He imagines sitting out on a deck chair with a pole and a stupid hat, enjoying the lazy breeze. And then he comes back to himself, remembers who he is. Tony Stark does not fish.
There are some things too painful to think about.
please mr. stark i don't want to go
The days or months or hours. All tied up together, string around packages waiting to be unwound. Crickets, of all things. The window open to catch the breeze and give him front row seats to a summer symphony. Crickets and frogs. If he'd known that's all it would take to stop the nightmares, he'd have moved out of the city a decade ago.
Maybe it's the crickets. Or maybe it's the warm weight of Pepper against his chest and the soft light of the baby monitor.
Babies don't come with instructions or manuals or even an off switch. Sure, living by yourselves in the middle of nowhere sounds great in theory. But when you and your wife have three hours between the two of you for the fourth day in a row…
The shed is complicated. It's a work space and a storage locker and a reminder of pain. Of trauma. Of all those things the cricket song pushes from his mind. He goes in there and his feet want to both root themselves (dig down through floorboards and gravel and dirt, down into the moist soil past earthworms and ant colonies) while also bolting back into the house (back to fireplaces and dishes and the scent of fresh bread dough rising in a pan on the windowsill).
Morgan's smart. Of course she is. She's a Stark. And if he's honest with himself, Tony doesn't know what he'd do if she'd turned out to be average. Although, given how wrapped around her little finger he is, he imagines he'd probably do much the same he is now. Spoil her like the princess she is, and give her all the love that's left in his old abused heart.
It takes some getting used to. The idea that he's out. That he's free of that superhero life. Even though he's a failure and the world's gone to hell in a gift basket because he's the one who let Thanos win but hey, when you've spent your life collecting guilt like stamps, you learn to live with it. So he tinkers (because he doesn't know how not to) and washes dishes (because division of labor in marriage) and sits on the couch with his daughter on his lap (because she's a miracle and a wonder and pretty much the only reason he doesn't just check out of this post-apocalyptic mess that is the universe).
Even when he doesn't mean to, he catches sight of it sometimes. Because the thing's just so damn shiny. Big. Flawless. A glint of sunlight off red, silver, and blue. And it shouldn't hurt. At least, not more than everything else that hurts him. But somehow that stupid star is like a symbol of something great. Something that was beautiful. Something he lost. He tosses a tarp over it one snowy Saturday morning in January. By March, the tarp is gone. He still catches sight of that red, silver, and blue sometimes. Even when he doesn't mean to.
There's lots of blame to go around. But most people, the ones who are left, don't seem too interested in that anymore. Half the world disappeared and the rest went up in flames. But the flames have died down to embers now, nothing more than life going on.
Pepper fixes chicken salad, and slices bananas, and plants a garden. Morgan sucks her thumb and stares at everything with big brown eyes. Tony breathes and gets through the day.
At first, he used to worry about the press finding them. About the paparazzi shattering this cocoon, this paradise they've constructed for themselves. But as the weeks drag on and no one interrupts them, he comes to terms with his disappointment. Not for the peace and quiet, because that's the glue and safety pins holding the edges of his sanity together, but for the simple fact that he doesn't matter anymore. No one remembers to hound a reclusive billionaire when the population of the planet has been decreased by fifty percent.
He won't stargaze. Pepper, sweet woman that she is, sits with him in their darkened bedroom while Happy points out the constellations to an ever curious Morgan. It's not that he doesn't think they're beautiful. They are. And away from the light pollution of the major cities, they're actually visible. But it's a cold beauty. Uncaring and distant. He's been up there, more than once. And space holds nothing but terror and death.
Ridiculous as it is, he still has that phone. That outdated flip phone with a single number programmed in. He almost called. Just once. When he was deliriously happy and wanting to spread the news that he, Tony Stark, was going to be a father. He almost called. But he stopped himself. Because that was a bridge that was structurally unsound even before he soaked the whole damn thing in gasoline and tossed an entire matchbook on it. He slammed the phone into a drawer and felt a dramatic increase in his chronic depression levels when he realized how pathetic it was that his list of friends was so short that he'd almost called the man who'd betrayed him, who'd practically left him to die, that he'd almost called that guy to tell him about Pepper being pregnant. But the phone's still in that drawer, right where he left it.
They don't watch the news. Whatever is going on out there, however the world is fitting itself back together? Quite frankly, that's none of Tony's business. This is his world. This right here. This is how he fits himself back together. Tinkering and not-fishing and endless repetitions of the alphabet song because Morgan thinks it's hilarious when he sings. Rocking chairs on the porch and fresh vegetables on the table. Grief and guilt and contentment and joy. This is his second chance.