Author's Notes

Honestly, my emotional stability since Endgame has been in such a precarious place, and it is not jiving well with my usual defense mechanism of (not) coping with hard things by making dumb jokes. So I'll be like, "Spider-Man: Far From Home? More like Spider-Man: Far From Okay," and then ugly cry for the ten-minute period after that.

Here, At the End of All Things

"Not to be a Debbie Downer," said Lang, "but I think we're forgetting something. What happens once we have the stones? You said Thanos had some tricked-out power glove?"

Tony pushed himself off the wall, hoping he looked calmer than he felt. "Bruce and I have been working on that."

Pawing through the clutter of wires and discarded food wrappers and papers with frantically scribbled notes on the workbench, he unearthed what he was looking for and lifted it for the others to see.

The gauntlet looked like just another spare part from his suit, except for the six hollows pitting the back of it.

Tony's skin prickled with the weight of Rhodey's stare, but he avoided meeting his eyes. He chuckled grimly. "Whatever it takes, right?"

"No."

The word cracked out in the fragile, weary silence like gunfire. His head jerked towards Natasha. Backlit by the window as she was, he could only really make out the lines of her body cutting their usual graceful silhouette from where she leaned on her elbows against the railing. But something about the way she was holding herself was . . . off. Clint hovered half a step behind her, and when he placed a hand on her back, Tony thought that maybe he saw her shoulders give a small shudder.

"Natasha," said Steve slowly, "we knew one of us was going to have to use the stones."

Thor, eyes gleaming with something other than (or at least, in addition to) booze, hurried to add, "Yes. And as the strongest of us, I claim the right of wielding the gauntlet."

Tony scoffed, and Bruce shook his head. "I don't think so. The stones give off gamma radiation. If anyone has a chance of using that thing without dying, it'll be me."

"Wait a minute," Steve began, "we haven't decided—"

"No," repeated Natasha, her voice low and dangerous.

She straightened, and suddenly her face was cast into harsh relief. It had been a long time since Tony believed that Natasha felt nothing just because she rarely let herself show it, but to see the unnatural flush staining her cheeks, the way her jaw worked, her eyes burning and bottomless, was still jarring. Her fear was like a tangible thing, worn right out on her sleeve, but more than that, she was angry.

Well, she could just get in fucking line.

"Then what the hell am I doing here?" Tony demanded. Louder, maybe, than he meant to, but that was just so he could hear himself over the throb of his own pulse in his ears. "I had accepted—"

The lie sat heavy and bitter on his tongue. He swallowed convulsively, blinking away the terrible look of surrender on Peter's face before he crumbled to dust, a sight that was forever burned into the back of his eyelids.

"—that we failed. I was done. But you came to me to help you figure out how to fix this clusterfuck with barely anything to go on except good intentions, a stick of gum, and pixie dust." The gauntlet rattled in his fist as he shook it. "This is how we fix it. What was the point of roundhouse kicking the sleeping dog if you didn't think this through all the way to the end?"

"You think, damn it," Natasha spat. "All of you. If Thanos couldn't handle all of the stones himself without consequence, no one of us can." She exhaled sharply, letting her eyes close briefly before opening them again and looking deliberately from Tony to Steve to Thor to Bruce and, finally to Clint, where they lingered. "I've never believed in fate before, but . . . there are six stones. Six of us started this, and I think the six of us need to end it. Together."

When no one said anything for a handful of heartbeats, she went on. "There's no room for any of your bullshit messiah complexes here." Her eyes pinned Tony where he stood. "What happened to cutting the wire instead of laying down on it? We—all of us—need to start fighting to live, not to die."

The silence between them stretched a little longer this time.

"But," Bruce finally said meekly, "we can't really afford to take a trial-and-error approach to this. We don't even know if duplicating exactly what Thanos did will work, let alone if it's possible for multiple people to use the stones collectively like that."

"Actually," Rocket remarked dryly.

And as the talking space raccoon told them all about the fight he and his friends had waged on another planet in a distant galaxy, the small ember of hope wedged stubbornly beneath Tony's ribs glowed hot and bright.

"Well," he said, when Rocket had finished. "That changes things, doesn't it?

.A.

When he and Steve rematerialized at the compound, Tony's knees nearly buckled at their rough landing. As soon as his footing was surer, he scanned around him quickly.

Nebula was perfectly composed, observing him coolly, and Rhodey seemed equally unfazed, as if doing the time warp was old hat to him by now. Somehow, Thor looked both paler and steadier than when they'd parted. Rocket was patting his knee, the highest part of him he could reach, the gesture caught somewhere between comforting and annoyed.

When his gaze fell on Clint, he felt his stomach lurch.

Clint's chest was heaving, as if he'd run through time and space to get there. His face was a mask of lines and shadows as he stared unblinkingly at Natasha, and he was gripping her wrist so hard, Tony could see the muscles in his arm trembling faintly. She was staring back at him, but he didn't know what to make of her expression.

Before Tony could say anything, Steve was briskly inquiring, "Sit rep."

"Got it," reported Rocket, holding a shimmering red vial between two fingers.

Rhodey nodded once. "Us too. Piece of cake."

Everyone finally seemed to cotton on to the fact that something was wrong as, one by one, their attention drifted to Clint and Natasha, still frozen in their perverse little tableau.

"Guys?"

Steve's voice appeared to remind Natasha that there were other people in the room. She tore her gaze from Clint's. "Asset acquired," was her clipped reply.

Clint let out a choked noise and broke his hold on her. Without a word, he all but leapt from the dais and stalked to the other side of the room, pacing back and forth along the bank of windows like a caged animal.

"What happened?" Steve tried to catch Natasha's eye, but she was tracking Clint's movements.

She hesitated before saying carefully, "There were some . . . complications."

"Complications?" Clint snarled. His feet hardly seemed to touch the ground, he moved towards Natasha so fast, but he skidded to an unexpected halt a few paces from Nebula.

"You." His face was nearly purple, so vicious was his agitation, and for a moment Tony was genuinely worried that he was going to have a stroke. "Did you know? What we'd have to do on Vormir? Did you?"

Nebula said nothing, even as Clint took another stride closer to her, but Steve stepped between them, putting a firm hand on his shoulder. Clint shrugged it off and turned away.

Natasha was there in front of him then, tangling her fingers in the front of his suit. "Clint," she murmured, "it's okay."

He closed his eyes and shook his head, but his hands crept up to cover hers. "After all that shit you said about fighting to live," he croaked, "how could you, Tasha?"

From across the dais, Tony locked eyes with Bruce, dread and unease buzzing between them like an electric current. To stave off the sick feeling gnawing at his gut, he forced himself to say in a falsely light tone, "If you two are really going to have a domestic in the middle of us ending the apocalypse, the least you could do is fill us in."

Mechanically, as if he were reciting something, Clint uttered,"In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. A soul for a soul."

Oh, thought Tony, connecting the dots and all at once seeing the hellscape they outlined. Oh holy shit.

All color leeched from Steve's face, and Thor genuinely seemed like he was seconds away from baptizing the floor with his pickled insides. Even in his daze, Tony found the painful little intake of breath from Rocket a bit surprising, but the distant look in his eyes made him suspect there was something more complicated going on there.

It occurred to him then that they should probably leave, step out and let the two of them have the room, but he couldn't seem to move even if he had wanted to.

"I could ask you the same thing," said Natasha, answering Clint's question like nothing had happened since and far too calmly, as if she was not confirming for them all what was already a foregone conclusion: that she and Clint had fought each other for the right to die.

"You didn't even give us a chance to find another way. He had barely finished talking before you took off for that cliff. What was I supposed to do?"

"I knew if I gave you time to think, you'd have done the same," she told him with a quavering smile. "And I couldn't take that chance."

Clint said something too quiet for the rest of them to hear, cupping her cheek before bending to kiss her. Tony looked away, giving them that at least.

When they pulled apart and shuffled back to rejoin the loose circle of their teammates, their hands were still laced together.

"How—" Bruce cleared his throat. "How did you get the stone?"

Clint grimaced. "We were . . . dangling. Was getting hard to hold on. And then that freak guarding the place said that the stone was satisfied by both of us trying to . . ." He faltered, but made himself finish. " . . . sacrifice ourselves for each other. Lost a little time after that, but when we came to, the stone was there with us."

No one knew quite what to say after that. They stood there in a kind of stupor until Steve visibly rallied himself and tried to inject a little reason into the moment.

"Everyone take an hour to patch up and rest up. We'll meet back here." A muscle in his jaw jumped. "And then we finish this."

.A.

Tony flexed his left hand, testing the range of motion in the joints of the gauntlet he was wearing.

"Ready?" Steve asked quietly, his own gauntlet glinting at his side as it caught a sunbeam.

"As we'll ever be."

He nodded at Bruce, who unfastened latches of the case sitting on the table they were gathered around. The infinity stones shone softly from within. Tucked into the back recess of the case was the original gauntlet Tony and Bruce had made, only there because they could think of no safer place to keep it for the time being.

Distantly, Tony was aware of how he and the others drew just a little closer to the sight, like magnets being pulled in.

He looked up at Rhodey where he stood with Nebula, Rocket, and Lang at a spot they arbitrarily judged to be a safe distance away. Rhodey's arms were folded tightly across his chest and he looked ready, even now, to resume arguing with Tony about why he should take his place. He was glad he'd decided against asking Rhodey to be the keeper and deliverer of his just-in-case goodbyes to Pepper and Morgan. The holographic recording, he thought to himself sardonically, was much more his style. And leaving a burden like that on his best friend's shoulders didn't sit right with his conscience.

All at once, the light streaming in from the windows was gone, like a blown-out birthday candle.

Before his lips could so much as part, the world was blown to kingdom come.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion, from the explosions of glass and concrete and dirt piercing the air to the way the floor pitched beneath their feet. Tony saw Bruce dive towards the case, his chest slamming on top of the lid and his knees coming up to curl his body around it protectively, before he was being thrown like a ragdoll and buried under a spray of rubble.

He winced as his comm squealed then crackled in his ear. "Bruce!" Clint was shouting. "Bruce, wait—no!"

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.," Tony rasped, "divert all power to repulsors."

"You got it, boss."

He blasted his way free and staggered to his feet, trying to catch his breath. Through the smoke, he saw other figures moving. Thor. Natasha. Steve.

And looming large above them all, Thanos.

.A.

The purple nurple from hell had grown even more psychotic since their last encounter.

Tony made the nanites that formed his helmet retract so he could spit out a mouthful of blood. He squinted. Huh. He must've hit his head harder than he thought, because that looked like Natasha swinging Thor's hammer, lightning arcing from the ends of her hair and fingers.

An ominous creaking from overhead stole his attention.

He looked up to see a fractured slab of concrete tenuously suspended above him by some rapidly deteriorating rebar. Tony fumbled before beginning to fire short, controlled blasts at the debris pinning his legs. Over the whine of his repulsors, he could still make out the metallic groans, and when he heard the screech of the rebar finally giving way, he squeezed his eyes shut.

"Mr. Stark!"

He flinched. It was the synapses in his brain misfiring as they were being crushed, that was all. He knew this, but in spite of it, he cracked open an eye and saw—

"Peter," he breathed, and if this was a hallucination born of Tony's dying moments, he couldn't be too sorry for it.

Peter Parker was standing over him, arms raised and back bent to help him bear the weight of the many tons of concrete that sat on his shoulders.

"Hang on," Peter panted as he shook, "I gotcha."

He braced himself and with a yell, flung the slab over his head, taking out a wave of Thanos's army as it skidded along.

Without quite knowing how, Tony found that his legs were free and he was being pulled upright, Peter talking a mile a minute. "—you all right? This is insane. Are you sure we're on Earth right now? Doctor Strange said that's where we were headed because you needed our help, but—"

His eyes stung as his vision blurred. He couldn't find his voice; it was trapped behind the lump in his throat. What was it about this kid that rendered him goddamn speechless in a way so few things could?

"Mr. Stark?"

He seized Peter by the scruff of his neck and hauled his body to his none too gently. "Kid," he gasped against his temple, "oh, Jesus, kid."

"I'm okay." Peter's voice was muffled against his shoulder, and his arms were real and solid around him. "I'm so glad you're okay."

Tony only held him tighter, his chest hitching with sobs. He knew he'd have to let him go soon because they were in the middle of an active warzone, but he let himself have this for just a few seconds more.

.A.

The blood and sweat soaked hour that followed seemed to happen only in flashes to Tony. The portals sparking open across the field, spilling out masses of people, many he knew, but so many more (was that a tree with a face?) that he didn't. Peter whooping as he clung to a woman from where they sat astride a flying white horse. Pepper showing up like an avenging angel in the suit he'd made for her and fighting at his side.

Time snapped into focus again when the gauntlet—the original one with all six stones inlaid in it—landed between him and Thanos.

By the end of their knock-down, drag-out struggle, Thanos had the gauntlet—but Tony had the stones. He cupped them in his right hand and numbly regarded the back of his left gauntlet as the nanites rearranged themselves to make five more hollows to join the one that was already there.

Any engineer worth his salt always built in redundancies.

He looked up to see Strange watching him as he contained a torrent of water. He held up a single finger.

"Tony!" He heard his name being screamed in stereo. "Tony!"

They were racing—leaping—flying at him from all sides.

His team. His family.

Thanos roared in rage as he barreled towards him, but the Captain—of the Marvel variety—slammed her fist into the underside of his jaw. Nebula and a green-skinned woman joined her in the assault.

Bruce reached him first, right arm charred and limp, but otherwise looking whole. Steve came next, Thor on his heels, and finally Clint and Natasha. Wordlessly, Tony offered up his right hand and they each grabbed a stone and pressed it into their gauntlet.

Tony and pain were old friends, but nothing, nothing, could have prepared him.

White-hot agony surged along every bone and tendon. The very fibers of his being were blistering, splintering, collapsing. He could feel each individual atom in his body coming apart at the seams. With what little sense remained, he groped blindly with his left hand for whoever was standing beside him—Natasha?—and prayed the others remembered to do the same.

Something weaved between the fingers of Tony's non-stone-bearing hand and he wrenched his head to the side. If he hadn't already been screaming himself raw, he would've started then at the sight of Peter's face screwed up and his body nearly doubled over in anguish as he held on tight.

No, he thought wildly before the pain swept him under again. No, no.

Tony was too far gone to notice when Pepper landed behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder or when Rhodey took her other hand. He never saw Barnes and Sam step up to grab hold of Steve's arm. Or the way Quill determinedly gripped Peter. Or Wanda and T'Challa after that. More and still more people joining them until the chain they made was nearly a hundred strong, snaking across the field under the protection of Strange's shield spell.

Eventually, he did notice how, slowly, he felt less like a writhing, throbbing mess of searing nerves and frothing blood. He was back in his body just enough to see when Thanos sank to the ground and disintegrated to ash.

And then everything went black.

.A.

The staticky feeling that sat heavy at the base of his skull let him know that he was definitely on the good drugs.

He tried to shift to alleviate the pins-and-needles sensation in his arm, but a paroxysm of pain overtook him and he couldn't stop the groan that slipped past his lips.

"Mr. Stark!"

"Tony? Tony."

Pepper's voice sounded wrecked. He fought to open his eyes, which he managed after some considerable effort. She was smiling even as the tears streamed down her face, and she was the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen.

"Hey, Pep," he slurred, instantly frustrated by the clumsy way his tongue moved. His eyes were already trying to flutter closed again.

"Hi," she sobbed before pressing her lips to his mouth, his eyelids, his forehead, his cheeks, every single one of her kisses wet and warm and perfect. He hummed, just basking in them.

A crash had his eyes springing open a second later, hissing as he jarred his left side again.

Peter stood frozen at the foot of the bed, his face twisted in a grimace of embarrassment. "I'm so sorry," he said in a small voice. "I was just trying to give you two some space." He ducked out of sight and resurfaced with a tray of medical instruments that he set down on the cart beside him with a clatter. He floundered, then gestured weakly towards the door. "I'm just gonna . . ."

"Don't be silly, Peter," said Pepper, wiping under her eyes.

"C'mere," Tony told him. He moved forward a tentative step or two then stopped. "Said c'mere."

He waggled the fingers of his right hand until Peter was sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed, then plucked at his shirt until he leaned over, face tucked into crook of his neck and arms surrounding Tony cautiously. After a minute, he felt Peter relax into the hug.

"You scared me," Peter sniffled.

"You . . . scared me first, kid." Tony lazily stroked the mussed hair beneath his hand. He could feel himself losing the battle with unconsciousness. "Hey. Love you."

Peter's shoulders shook silently against him. "I love you, too."

.A.

Tony was far more alert the next time he woke up, and he had a thousand questions.

Where were they? (Wakanda.) Were the others all right? (On the mend and under the care of Helen Cho and T'Challa's sister. All six of them had undergone surgery to stop some internal bleeding and remove the necrotic tissue from their left arms. Time would determine the extent of the nerve damage they'd suffered. Bruce's injuries were the most severe since he used the gauntlet alone the first time to reverse the Snap, but they were optimistic that he wouldn't lose his right arm.) How was the universe dealing with the missing half of the population reappearing? (A little bit of a shitshow, logistically speaking, but a happy one.)

"Where's Morgan?" he asked at last.

"Happy's bringing her by this afternoon," replied Pepper, finger-combing his hair back. "We were waiting until you got the all-clear for more visitors from Helen."

Peter's head tipped to one side in confusion. "Who's Morgan?"

Tony choked on nothing before a wide, disbelieving grin spread over his face. "He doesn't know?" he said gleefully to Pepper, almost vibrating with excitement. "You didn't tell him?"

Her eyes sparkled at him and crinkled in the corners and God he loved her. "I thought you might want to."

Introducing Morgan and Peter was one of the most profound moments of joy Tony Stark had ever experienced.

The expression of complete shock on Peter's face quickly chased by adoration ranked only second, in Tony's mind, to how choked up Peter became when he realized that Morgan already knew him.

("Do I make Peter sad like he makes you sad sometimes, Daddy?" Morgan asked as she watched a few tears escape the corners of Peter's eyes.

Peter scrubbed roughly at his face with the back of one hand, his wet laugh turning into a small sob. His other hand held Morgan securely in his lap, where she had climbed up and perched herself as if she'd been doing it her whole life.

"No, Maguna. He's just so happy to finally meet you.")

Tony was drowsing as he contentedly listened to Peter and Morgan chattering away when a shadow in the doorway caught his attention and sent his heart rate skyrocketing.

"You motherfu—"

Morgan's reproachful gaze was the only thing that kept him from finishing the curse, but only just.

Coulson, meanwhile, continued to smile at him blandly. He was sporting an impressive shiner that Tony wished he could take credit for.

"Oh—oh my God." Pepper, voice breaking, stood shakily from her seat. "Phil?"

Peter looked between them all. "You guys know him too? Clint was real mad when he showed up. He decked him clear off his feet, helped him up, and then cried on his shoulder for almost ten minutes. It was awesome," he said solemnly.

Tony covered his face with his good hand and only lowered it again when he was sure he could keep his shit together. Mostly.

"How?" he bit out. Longer sentences were a little outside his wheelhouse at present.

"It's a long story," Coulson demurred.

Tony took Pepper's hand back into his own. He nodded pointedly at the only remaining free chair in the room and Coulson sat.

"I've got time."

.A.

He had to hand it to T'Challa; the guy knew how to throw a party.

Full and a little (a lot) over socializing, Tony shuffled over to the low sofa where he saw Pepper talking with Hill and, on the other end, Peter leaning sleepily against his aunt's side. He eased down between them. Without interrupting her sentence or even turning her head, Pepper's hand drifted to his leg.

He let his eyes wander. The party was winding down, but there were still plenty of people around. He zeroed in on his five teammates out of habit. They were easy enough to spot since, like him, they all had their left arms in slings. Poor Bruce's right arm was similarly situated, but he didn't seem too bothered as he spoke with two baby-faced, starry-eyed agents from Coulson's team. The pair of them were hanging on Bruce's every word, and he looked some mix of flattered and mildly bemused.

Most of the bar had been taken over by Rhodey, Steve, Happy, Sam, Lang, and Barnes. They were talking over each other loudly and playfully, and though he was too far to hear what they were saying, he did hear Sam's booming laugh as Steve clapped a hand to a chagrinned-looking Barnes's back.

Thor was in another corner of the room with the Guardians. He almost seemed like his old self as he talked animatedly. Quill and Nebula, while still part of their circle, were sitting a little farther apart from the others, shoulders almost touching. Quill was smiling absently, but Tony could see even from here that his eyes were unfocused as he stared past them and out into the starry night sky.

Seated around one of the fire pits out on the balcony were Clint, Natasha, and Coulson. Coulson's back was to Tony, but in the dancing light of the flames, he could just make out Clint and Natasha's faces. They looked happier and more relaxed than he'd seen either of them in years, possibly even in the entire time he'd known them.

There was still so much to be done. Deciding what to do with the stones. Rebuilding the compound. Figuring out what, if anything, could be done to restore Vision.

But not tonight.

Tonight was about healing and being together and celebrating the win. He still didn't think it had sunk in quite yet, but it would, in time.

The comforting weight of Morgan on his chest helped to further ground him in the here and now. She sighed in her sleep, nuzzling into him a little. There was a wet spot on his shirt where she had been steadily drooling.

A wave of exhaustion broke over him. Tony sank into the cushions and pressed his cheek to the top of Morgan's head.

Peter nudged him gently with the toe of his sneaker. Okay? he mouthed. Tony smiled at him, and that seemed to be answer enough.

He didn't bother fighting it when his eyelids began to close. Happy, safe, and surrounded by the people he loved, Tony let himself rest.

End Author's Notes

Hey. Hi. I love you 3,000.

'Nuff said.