GLITTER AND GOLD
Chapter One - Infinity
"He did it."
Her voice isn't quite human — or whatever it is she was before Thanos got a hold of her and turned her into a pile of parts held together by anger, betrayal and deep terror of the man who was once her father. It's not a comforting tone by any means — it's not even defeat, it's a simple statement.
He did it.
He did.
Half the universe is gone, and all Tony cares right now is the ashes clinging to the blood on his hands — no matter how far he runs, even so far away as another planet, another galaxy altogether — there always is, there always will be, blood on his hands.
X
He's not really sure what to expect when they get back to Earth, faster than he thought it would be, considering where they were, but Nebula is handy with ships, and he's a quick study in just about any kind of tech. It helps that she actually knows her way around Thanos's mother planet, because she's his daughter, bred for killing and destruction. They take her team's ship out of there, and Tony hopes never to go back.
Tony doesn't ask what made her change her mind. He doesn't ask what made her and Gamora change sides, how come she wasn't with Quill when they came, and she returns the favor to some extent.
"Was he your son?" she asks evenly at some point, his eyes fixed ahead, at the vortex of speed and light they're hurdling through. Jokes about donuts and pop culture swarming his head.
"No," he answers, the word seeming wrong in his voice.
He wonders where May is. If she's going to try to kill him, if she's ash by now, their tiny apartment in disrepair, no one to miss the two of them, because they were all the other had. Tony closes his eyes, and Nebula gets it, apparently. She keeps her silence, but there's an air of comprehension around her when she stares at him, and maybe it's because they are all the other has right now, maybe it's because they're both creatures who would rather fight their evils hands on than seek out answers by mysterious means as they have to do now, but she gets it, and she leaves it well alone.
When they descend on Earth, it's dark.
Tony knows they are at a point where Earth can actually track things getting too close to them, where they can intercept them, and question them, and not allow them through — invader ships apart — but no one even tries when they break through atmosphere, heading for the compound, because at least there, maybe, if he's lucky, there will be some kind of normalcy.
Half the universe is gone.
Everyone has a fifty-fifty chance of being either dead or alive.
The second they hesitate by the door of the ship before coming out is like Schrodinger's Earth — everyone Tony loves, everyone he cares about, is both dead and alive.
And then Rhodey comes out through the door, and he feels as if half his soul is returned to him at the sight. A breath he's been holding since Titan comes out of him, and he staggers out the ship towards his best friend, who has tears in his eyes, and grabs him by the shoulders, pulls him in, against his chest, like he had done years before, on the sands of Afghanistan. Rhodey holds him like he has no intention of letting Tony go, and now, now that he's on Earth, now that he's here, he feels safe in a way he has no right to feel.
Half the universe is gone, he thinks, but clings to Rhodey anyway.
Tony can feel the second Rhodey sees Nebula behind him, and he takes a step back, running a hand through his hair.
"So, weird story," he starts, trying to sound close to normal, and Rhodey sees through his attempt but keeps up with it, because this is them. It's their core, their base — before Pepper, before the Avengers, before Happy or anyone, this man here was the first to deem Tony worthy of being more than a step to stand on to get ahead.
"You think a blue chick is weird?" he asks in a low voice, gesturing behind them, where a raccoon is breaking ranks, heading straight for them.
"Nebula?" he says, and Tony would be shocked, and he'd make a joke, but he can't summon the energy right now.
He doesn't have any left.
The two of them stare at each other, and Nebula shakes her head once, a jerky motion that clearly betrays more emotion than she is used to, and the raccoon falters visibly.
"Groot?" she asks, and all the answer she gets is a loud intake of breath from the raccoon and a shake of his head, and Tony gets it, he does.
Of all the Guardians, they are the only two left. One who went with Thor, one who stayed behind.
"We thought you were dead."
The voice startles him so hard that Nebula has a weapon in her hand before Tony can even start to react, but he waves her down, and turns slowly, heart hammering in his chest — Rogers is right there, framed in the light of the door, pale and red eyed, but there, and as much as Tony would like to deny it, it is a relief that he hasn't vanished.
He keeps looking around, and Rhodey seems to feel what he's looking for.
"Tony…" his best friend says in a soft tone, and Tony does something he never thought he'd do in his life, in front of so many people, some of whom he doesn't even know: he falls to his knees, and he cries.
He cries in relief for having Rhodey right there beside him, and he cries in terror for what happened to all of them, and he cries in fear of what he has to accomplish now, and he cries in deep seated sadness, for the blood and ash on his hands that he hasn't yet brought himself to clean.
He cries.
Pepper is gone, but Rhodey is alive, and he is there with all the others because Thanos himself told him he wished they'd remember him. And amidst his tears, his sobbing breathing that he can't calm even when he tries, even when he feels Rhodey trying to pull him up, he promises himself that they will — they will remember him.
Thanos will remember him, and he will wish Tony were gone.
Suddenly there's a weight on his shoulder and he looks up, the sight of bright blue eyes, filled with tears, staring right at him almost breaks him again, but he holds it in, and Steve Rogers grips his shoulders in his hands, tears sliding down his face too as they both kneel on the grass, a spaceship behind them, an empty glass house to the side, and half the universe gone.
"I'm so sorry," Steve says, voice almost inaudible, and Tony shakes his head, because he doesn't have any energy for this — for grudges, for anger, for feeling betrayed by his man, he can't anymore, not after Peter died in his arms, begging him not to go; not after returning home and finding out pepper isn't here.
"It doesn't matter now," he says, his voice breaking, but he forges on, getting a hold of himself, because this is not the time to fall apart. At least not yet, "Who—" he starts, and a new wave of despair overtakes him. He takes a second to compose himself, gets up and offers Rogers a hand up too, looking behind them to do a head count, "Who made it back?" he asks because it's easier than asking who is gone.
"Thor, Nat," Steve starts, motions behind them towards the raccoon, "Bruce, Rocket, me," he stops talking, and Tony waits — for more names, for some other string of people to come out of the compound, but all he sees are them, the ones Steve tells him.
There's no one else.
He knew Vision had to have died for Thanos to be able to get all the stones, but the rest of them, all gone?
He stares at Steve, who looks back at him, and now Tony sees, he recognizes what seems so broken about this man now — Bucky didn't make it. Sam didn't make it. Steve's just lost his best friends all over again, after fighting so long and so hard to get one of them back.
They start making their way inside, quiet, all of them. Nebula is close, right at his back, and with her, the talking raccoon, whose name is apparently Rocket, and Steve and Rhodey on either side of him as they enter, and he looks around, where everything is where it should be. All the things he put into this place because he thought he was making them a place to live, a home for heroes, for the ones who had to leave their lives behind to fight for the common people. End tables and couches and TVs, frivolous, stupid things he placed in this building thinking it would make it all a bit easier for them all.
The things remain, and all the people are gone, all over again.
He used to be in less pain when he cared more about things, and less about people.
Tony Stark stares around the room filled with the people who remained behind, and he doesn't feel up to the task.
"We need rest. All of us. You've fought a war in here, and I've seen another galaxy in the past few days. Half the universe is gone, and the things we'll have to do from now on won't be easy, but we need to rest. We need food, and sleep, and then we need to… talk."
"You know something we don't," Bruce says, eyes scared even though in any other man they may have been hopeful, but this is Bruce: he always expect the worst, because that is what usually comes to him.
"Not quite, but we do need rest."
No one argues with that — he doesn't know where they've been, he doesn't know for sure that they'll follow him, but he's tired. Tired as he hasn't felt in all his life, exhausted from everything, even exhausted from his own feelings.
He steps into his room, feels Rhodey close by, watching him with scared eyes, as if he'll vanish into ash too if he looks away, and he knows that this, this right here, is where his pain will start all over again — but not now. Not tonight.
He trusts Rocket or Steve or Rhodey will find Nebula a place to stay, and he hopes they follow his advice and rest. Tomorrow, another impossible task will begin for them, and he can't have his people running ragged from the start.
When he gets out of the shower, his eyes trace all the things pepper left behind, and he cannot deal with it right then — he just doesn't have the energy for it. He lies down in bed, eyes closed tight against the things he can see in the room, and takes a shuderring breath, pretending he can't still smell the ashes on him even after washing it all out.
He rests.
The universe will hold one more night — there's only half of it left anyway.
X
Being to another galaxy screws with his perception of time, and he has no idea how late it is when he wakes up — he's alone in bed, and that thought breaks him apart again.
He gets up and changes into some clothes for the day, thinking back on the days before their split, when this compound was full of people, and training, and easy camaraderie like he had never had before. When Tony comes to the living room, most of them are already there, few as they are now. Nebula is huddled in a corner, watching everyone and making everyone but Rocket nervous. The raccoon looks trapped between angry and sad, a sentiment Tony definitely understands and relates, but everyone else just looks jittery.
He goes into the kitchen, a gesture that brings him a déjà vu of the beginning of their end, but he gets himself some coffee and some food, even though he doesn't feel like he can eat.
"Can you guys tell me what happened here?" he asks when he takes a seat, and slowly, in bits and pieces, Steve, Thor and Natasha tell him of what they did, their plan, and how Thanos won anyway, vanishing into thin air after eliminating half the universe. They tell him of Wakanda's losses, and how T'Challa is gone, and how Shuri and Okoye are the ones trying to hold their people together, along with M'Baku. How they got back to the compound on the off chance that someone, anyone, of them might come back, but no one had, until him.
"What happened to Strange?" Bruce asks him, knowing him well enough not to ask after Peter, not now, possibly never, "He was so serious about keeping the stone safe, did Thanos—" he doesn't finish, but the question is clear: did Thanos kill him to get to the stone?
"He gave the stone up so Thanos would spare my life," he starts, and sees surprise clear on Bruce's face, the one out of them who had actually had any contact with the man, and Tony gets it — it seems insane that Strange would trade half the universe for a single life, "Then Thanos pulled his vanishing trick and left us behind. That's when…" he pauses, thinks about not saying anything, but he feels as if he owes the others this. He owes it to at least mention their names, to talk about them again, to lift this taboo over the ones who were taken, "After that, they started to vanish. Ash in the wind, this quiet around us as it happened. Drax and Mantis and Quill first, and then Strange, and Peter last," he says, choking up a little, but holding it in, "And, to tell you the truth, that's where things got weird."
"What do you mean?" Natasha asks, and Tony tilts his head to the side before starting, because he's not really sure about what most of this means, but he knows this is how they defeat Thanos.
This is how they get their people back.
"We fought Thanos wrong," he begins, and senses the shift in the air at the reminder of their defeat, "We lost, because we went up against a villain, and Thanos… He's not a villain," he shakes his head as they start to protest, anger clear on their faces, "Not conventionally. He didn't want to kill for pleasure, he didn't seek power for himself, he wasn't out for revenge. He's not Ultron, or Red Skull, or even Loki. We lost because, deep down, we could always count on a villain's will to save themselves first. To do that last thing, that last run, to save their own skin before actually accomplishing their goals, because it was a cause for them, it wasn't above their own survival. That was our mistake. We got used to that, we've always won because at the last moment, every one of them, they always came first, it was always about saving their own skin, it was all that mattered."
"Loki wasn't like that. Not in the end," Thor says then, voice betraying anger coming from sadness, and Tony turns to him, conceding the point.
"And where is he now?"
"Dead," the god's voice is hollow, almost daring Tony to contradict him, but Tony understands this now. At least this small part, he gets.
"Because he accepted, at the end, that there are some things bigger than his life. That some things, some people, some causes, are worth dying for. He accepted the consequences of trying to defend what he thought was right, and I bet he knew he could die for it, but he tried anyway. He knew he had to do what was right, no matter the cost — and that, all of that, is us. It's why we fight, it's why we keep going even when we shouldn't," he pauses then, sees they are all staring at him, and lets out a deep breath, "That," he begins, "is also Thanos. He's not a villain, not in the way he sees it. He's a hero, saving the universe from collapse, killing without caring who you are, or how much money or influence you have, kings and hobos and children and adults, without discrimination. The way he sees it, he's a savior, and he fights for what he believes in — it's not for him. It's for the cause he believes, and that's why we lost. Because we saw him for the threat instead of his motivation, and that was our mistake. We have to learn from that."
"What for?" Rocket asks, his furry face contorted in anger, "What's the point in learning about him now? He won, you morons, HE WON!" he yells, paws closed into fists by his side, and Tony nods at him tersely.
"Before we landed on Titan, Strange told me he wouldn't hesitate in letting me or the kid die if it meant saving the stone, because he wouldn't put the universe at risk to save a single life — and then he traded it for mine. I asked him not to, and he did it anyway."
"Yeah, but what kind of asshole wouldn't save someone's life if they could?" Rocket interjects again, his voice still angry, but Tony keeps shaking his head.
"The kind of guy who understood that some causes are above some lives. I didn't mean anything to Strange — he wasn't my brother, hell, he wasn't even my friend. We met the day we left Earth. He wouldn't risk the fate of half the universe to save me. I'm not worth that."
He stops, looking down, because he can't bear to look at any of them right now.
"While we were on that planet, he looked into the future, and he saw fourteen million six hundred and five possible outcomes, and we only won once," he pauses, dares to raise his eyes and look at the others carefully, "He knew which future held our victory, and Strange wouldn't consider half the universe dying a victory by any means, even if we did kill Thanos after that. He knew this was the one path that would mean we'd win, and he knew we could do it, because he saw it. All we have to do is figure out how."
And right then he sees in each of his companions' eyes the same dread he's been feeling ever since he understood the meaning of what lay on their shoulders now — half the universe was already gone, and it's on them to bring it back.
"When Strange vanished, he told me we were on the end game. Before he turned to ash, he told me it was the only way — he had to save… me, for some reason, and Strange wouldn't do that if he wasn't absolutely sure that I—" he stops, takes a deep breath, anger and betrayal and the fear of having his back stabbed again washing over him, "— that we could do it. In any possible scenario, any one of us could have been the ones to go, any one of the others could have been the ones to remain behind, but Strange accepted he would turn to ash to give us a chance to win, and if he did think we could win, then he knew there was a way to bring them back."
Silence meets his statement, and he knows they are wary of it all. He doesn't really need them, he thinks — it won't come to a fight, it won't come to a war — it's not about fire power right now, it's about him knowing that if he is the key, then he is well aware of what kind of lock will be waiting for him.
He can't really trust them to have his back, he knows. He hurt them, and they hurt him, and they don't have the time to fix that before he gets started, because the plan — and he woke up that morning knowing he has a plan — can't wait.
"Do any of you have any idea what Thanos could be up to now?" he asks, and Nebula is the one to answer him.
"He's always said that when his mission was done, he would be able to rest. He accomplished his mission, it will take him some time before he moves on to something else."
Tony nods at that slowly.
"What of the gauntlet and the stones? What happened to it?"
"They were still with him, but the gauntlet…" Thor trails off, straightening his eyes at Tony, "Do you have a plan already? Do you know what we have to do?"
"I may have an idea, and I don't particularly like it, but I'll need to confer with Princess Shuri and Helen Cho first. If—" he starts but holds back, looking around the room, suddenly finding that he doesn't actually trust any of his old team mates to actually grant him his request.
"What do you need done?" Nebula asks, efficient and cold and ready to get dismembered because she knows she can, quite literally, put herself back together if she needs to, more machine than person.
Well, he always did get along better with machines than people, didn't he?
"I need to find Thanos. We need to find the stones. Leave the rest up to me."
"Tony—" Steve starts, but Tony turns to look at him, something in his eyes giving the Captain the warning to stop.
"I know you don't trust me," he says, voice burning in his throat, "I know you have your reasons not to, but I know what I have to do," he tells the other man with as much dignity as he can, before turning back to Nebula, "Can you do that?"
"We'll do it," it's Thor who answers, already on his feet by Nebula, a storm in his eyes again.
"Thank you," he tells them, voice halting, "I'm going to go call Helen and Shuri. I'll let you know when I have news."
He leaves the room at that, and doesn't look back. No point in telling them what his plan is, anyway.
He just needs to get his job done.
X
Not for the first time since he woke up in this century, Steve wishes he had a dictionary to help him put his thoughts into words Tony would understand. And maybe one where he could understand Tony, and something that would make them not explode along the way.
He trusts Tony — his problem is that he is also careful with Tony, not because he thinks he won't come through, but because Steve knows he'll die trying to do it anyway, even if it's impossible, even if there seems to be no way he could win. If he promises anyone, anything, he'll kill himself to make it happen, and that's why Steve is careful.
He already hurt Tony so much, so very, very much, he cannot allow this to be one more thing to pile on him. He can't bring himself to deposit the weight of half the universe on Tony's shoulders and expect the man to just deal with it, because it's not fair.
"Wouldn't it be nice," Natasha starts from the door to his room, careful and measured as always, "If somewhere else in the universe, someone else was planning to bring everyone back and win this war, and none of us had to rip each other apart again?"
He chuckles humorlessly, running a hand over his face with a tired sigh.
"Wouldn't that be something?"
She takes a seat by his side, quiet for a few moments — they've done this quite a few times in the past two years, ever since Steve and Tony broke everyone apart. She comes and makes him talk, and listens and advises, and he lets her know she's trusted and valued, and her own person, and it works.
It's sad, but it works.
He misses Tony something fierce, but he has to go through this without him again, apparently, because he broke Tony's trust so completely that the man doesn't even let himself think that whatever Steve's hesitation is, it isn't about whether or not Tony can accomplish whatever he is planning, but fear that he may not come back from it — be it because he succeeds, or because he fails.
"Strange gave him a plan, or the idea of one, and he knows he can get it done, Steve. He wouldn't have come back if he didn't."
"I know that," he answers, staring straight ahead, "I don't doubt that he can get it done, but what if he—"
"That's not for you to decide," she tells him simply, to the point and with no accusation in her voice, "It's his decision to get this done, because, whether we think it's fair or not, whatever Strange saw that made him save Tony: that's for him to deal with, and we can't take his choice way." She hesitates, something she doesn't do frequently, and sets a hand on his arm, "You tried protecting him from things before, and it felt like betrayal," he turns to her sharply, but doesn't say the ugly words that are at the tip of his tongue when he sees how terrified she seems to be. Just as terrified as him, "Let's try supporting him this time. Let's believe in what he can do, and that he can handle it, and hope it gives us better results."
"It doesn't feel like that's enough," he whispers, looking ahead again, avoiding her knowing gaze, "It doesn't feel like it'll fix… us," he confesses, and Natasha squeezes his shoulder once before getting up, not saying anything.
Maybe she doesn't think they can fix themselves either.
X
"Let me get this right," Princess Shuri starts, her face serious, and Tony wants to beat himself for dragging another child into this mess, but he can't help this one: if he wants this whole insane plane to work, he'll need her help more than anyone's, with the possible exception of Helen Cho, "You want me to use vibranium to reconstruct something with the same properties as the gauntlet Thanos used to kill half the universe?"
Her doubt is clear — it's not so much about whether she can do it or not, with or without his help. It isn't even about him being able to achieve this: she is suspicious of him having it, of him using it, because she doesn't trust him with much, let alone with this.
Shuri had, after all, had contact with Barnes and Rogers and Wanda and all the others, and he bets every cent to his name that they didn't paint a pretty picture. She doesn't trust him, but Tony needs her help — he needs the materials she can provide, and he needs her genius to make this work.
So he looks at the screen, and he looks down at the sketches and designs he has already started, and at the corner of his eye he can see the small piece of red polymer, flame-retardant and filled with nanotech, which was going to be a part of Peter's new suit.
"Have you ever heard of Peter Parker?" he asks her, looking down, not having to be staring at the screen to see her confused look.
"No…" she says, trailing off as if questioning his sanity.
"You wouldn't have. He's your age," he begins, throat closing for a second, but he swallows dryly and goes on, because he has to go on, "Brightest kid I've seen since… well, since I was a kid. Good kid too, kind hearted, and compassionate—" he stops, tilts his head to the side, looks again at the polymer sitting on his work station, "He was at the scene when the first of Thanos's watchdogs came to get Strange. He tried to help, but that fight… That fight was way too big for a spider that small. I told him to go home, I told him to leave, I actually made him leave, but he came back. Stowed away inside that ship, and he did help in the end, saved Strange, helped with the Guardians when they thought we were on the wrong side, helped with Thanos when he showed up, and he survived the fight, you know?" he finally looks up, and he knows his voice has taken that manic quality it sometimes does when he doesn't want to go where he is going, but knows he must. Shuri stares at him with tears in her eyes, because she and Peter would have gotten along like a house on fire — kind and good and brave, the lot of them, "The worst of it is that he did get away with going to space, to a strange galaxy in an alien ship to fight a mad prune, and it didn't matter," he shrugs, looking down again, "It didn't matter because if he had stayed here, on Earth, we might have lost Strange a little sooner, and maybe we would have lost even more badly on Titan, but… It didn't matter. Turned to dust, begging me not to go, saying he was sorry, only god knows what for, vanished in my arms, and I couldn't keep him—" his voice falters, and he closes his eyes again, tightly, feeling this burn inside of him, "—I couldn't keep him safe from anything."
Shuri doesn't say a word, tears streaming down her face too, because Tony knows she feels it as well — her brother is gone, and so many of her people along with him. Because of a being that didn't understand that killing half of the universe for the good of the other half means there is no good at all.
"So, I'm going to use that to bring them back, because a magician may as well have told me it was the only way. I'm going to use that to undo what Thanos did, and when I'm done, it's going to fall to pieces, just like his did."
Shuri takes a second to answer, and doesn't comment on his tears, just like he doesn't comment on hers.
"Well, Mr Stark," she starts, voice rough, but an almost teasing tone in it, "I want to believe that if two geniuses like ourselves will be working on it, it'll resist better than that."
Tony never thought he could be so grateful in his life.
As they arrange to have Tony and the rest of them to go to Wakanda, Tony doesn't notice Steve Rogers sneaking out of the room, and back upstairs, even more upset than before.
Tony doesn't have the time to deal with Steve now — he has half the universe to save.
Hopefully, he'll trust better people to have his back this time.
X
Helen stares at him for a very long time before making any kind of move, and Tony can almost feel her disapproval for this as a third person in the room — the only thing keeping her from saying no to his request is the fact that she knows this is very likely the only way.
He takes a second to be grateful for the fact that she didn't vanish as well — he does know that her girlfriend did, though, and maybe that is a bit of incentive for this insane request of his, more than anything else.
Saving half the universe gets personal. More than before, more than ever before.
"I don't like this," she starts, her voice cutting, but firm, "I'm all for experimentation and innovation, but this, the roots of it…" she trails off, and Tony nods, agreeing. He had, after all, seen first hand what that could do to someone, but he knows he has it right this time — he just needs her to make it work, to make it perfect, because there's no room for error here.
Half the universe is at stake. Things need to move fast, because every second they waste here, is a second longer where half the universe is gone.
"It's fixed. You know it's fixed. You were on the team that took this stuff out of Pepper, and you know you could make it work. I—" he starts, frustration getting in his way, because Helen Cho is a professional above anything else, and she shouldn't be this reluctant. Not with this, "There is no way I can handle whatever those stones do the way I am now. And there is no one with the power to do it, apart from the guy who already did it. I'm not asking this because I think it's a great idea, I'm asking because it's the only one we have."
"The only one you have, you mean," Helen shots back, and Tony sighs, throwing himself against the back of his chair, arms wide open, his lack of sleep and his anxiety finally getting the best of him in this conversation.
"If you have anything else, please, go ahead."
She sighs, annoyance clear in he gesture, and stares at the screen some more — every single file he has on Extremis is in there, and she scans it all once more, before looking back up at him.
"What if—" she hesitates, and he waits, impatient for her answer, already thinking of a list of other doctors who might work with him on this, and would be trustworthy enough not to think that using Extremis on people is a good idea after this is done — it's a very short list, "What if it's not enough?"
His shoulders sag at that, and he breathes in and out deeply before answering, because it always catches him off guard, this kind of thing, this clear demonstration that someone outside of Pepper, and Rhodey, and Happy actually cares about whether he lives or dies.
"Then I'll die trying."
"Tony…"
"Helen, I'm not even supposed to be here," he tells her simply, voice devoid of anything but factual answers, "I was supposed to have died on that planet, and Strange gave me a little bit of time to get this right. If I die trying, then I know that, at least, I'm still following the path that we were supposed to take to make this work," he looks at her, then, eyes serious, and voice firm, knowing he can't falter in this — if a single person he needs to accomplish this thinks he is wavering, they'll start to question this whole thing, and then they're done, "I don't care about what comes after, I just have to get this done. And I need you to help me. Please."
She shakes her head slightly, but sighs, and then nods at him.
"If we are to get this done quickly, I'm going to need more help than just this," she gestures to the screen, and Tony nods at her, getting up.
"I'll call in reinforcements," he jokes weakly, already turning his back to leave.
"Tony," she calls, and he stops, turning to look at her, "Promise me this is not a suicide mission. Promise me that you are actually trying to survive this."
He swallows dryly at that, but puts on his best press smile.
"I'm doing my best, Helen. I promise."
He's just quite sure that his best won't be good enough.
X
Bruce is not okay.
It's not like this is a new situation for him — he's not okay most of the time, really. His childhood was a nightmare, and then the whole thing with the Hulk was another nightmare, and then, when he thought he had found something to help him along, fucking Ultron happened, and he became a gladiator in another galaxy and just— he knows from not okay, right?
But this… This is more than that. This is so much more than that.
There's a pattern for the shitty things that happen to his life, and it is one that he has learned to deal with — he has anger issues, and trust issues, and he knows how to work around those enough to resemble a normal human, most of the time, but right now… Right now he doesn't have the Hulk, and for something that he had feared, and loathed, and despised in himself for so long, he misses him.
He knows he's smart, he knows he's a genius, but right now, Hulk could do things that he can't — and as he watches Thor and Nebula get ready to hunt Thanos in Wakanda, he wishes he could trust the Other Guy to show up and help them out. Thor can take care of himself, he knows this much, but Nebula look so fragile, so small, and there's nothing he can do to help them.
"Banner."
He looks back from where he was staring out the window, and sees Thor coming to him, a worried look in his eyes. He nods at the man, and turns back around to the glass — everything is quiet outside.
Everything has been quiet for days now, as if the Earth has been hushed — as if the Universe has been muted.
"Are you all right?"
As always, the tone of his voice is rough and doubtful, as it is every time he shows concern, as if he doesn't think he's allowed.
Bruce almost snorts at the absurdity of it — personally, he doesn't think anyone has lost as much as Thor has. His mother, his girlfriend, his father, his hammer, his planet, his people, his friends, his brother, all gone. And here he is, trying to know if Bruce is okay.
"Given the circumstances…" he trails off with a shrug, turning to look at Thor's profile and quickly looking away, "Be careful out there."
Thor nods, crossing his arms, a determined look on his face.
"I'm going for the head this time," he replies, and Bruce does snort then — Thor's culture is different than theirs, he has to remember, and a part of him who is vaguely aware of his time as the Hulk on Sakaar understands that as well. You fight — and if you lose, you get up and fight again, until you win or you can't get up anymore.
Life is that simple.
He almost misses it.
"I wish to make a request," Thor says slowly, and Bruce makes a noise for him to continue, "Keep an eye on Stark."
It startles Bruce a bit, and he looks at Thor sharply, ready to defend Tony if he has to — he still isn't clear on what happened after he left, he doesn't really understand what broke them all up, but he does know that Tony is in pieces because of it, and even if he has the highest regard for Thor, he won't let the other man put Tony down like this.
Thor takes one look at him and snorts, almost like he can see the indignation rising within him.
"Not for him, but for him. I feel Stark has maybe reached the end of his rope, as you midgardians say. He is not seeing clearly, he's lost perspective, and that is a bad way to go into battle."
Bruce turns around, arms crossed in front of him, and a suspicious frown on his face.
"You do that all the time."
Thor nods in acquiescence.
"I know. But I'm also the God of Thunder, and Stark, as much as he believes it, as much as we almost believe it too, sometimes, is just a human. He can't come back from things that I can. He's young, Banner, as are you, and all the others, and I don't think he's thinking right about this."
"You don't think he can do it?" Bruce questions, fear gripping at his heart again, but Thor shakes his head.
"I have only met this sorcerer he speaks of once, but I do know of the stone he carried, and if he says that Stark is the key, then he is doing exactly what should be done to get everyone back, to undo the terrible things Thanos has done. But… I believe also," he starts carefully, "that our friend Tony has given up hope on saving himself too. He accepted this truth of fixing Thanos's misgivings at the cost of his life, and that is not the way to accomplish such a task. If he goes into this scheme of his believing he won't have a way out, then he won't even look for one, even if it's possible."
Bruce thinks back on the past few days, and he sees it with a clarity he hadn't before — Tony isn't eating or sleeping much, if at all. Locked in his workshop the whole time, waiting for the all clear so they can head to Wakanda to start the actual work on the replacement gauntlet, meeting with Helen Cho about something he hasn't told them yet, always just an excuse away from hiding from his old team, conferring with Shuri and Rocket at all hours, worried and working all the time.
"I'll do my best," he tells Thor, who nods at him firmly.
"The Princess Shuri told Stark we'd be getting the clearance to head there later today, and then I and Nebula will start to track Thanos' trail, to find him. We'll bring him to justice, and, hopefully, be a little closer to the end of this."
Bruce feels like Thor wants to say more, but right then Tony shows up, a strained smile on his face as he approaches the two of them.
"Hey, Banner, I've been looking for you. You got a minute?"
"Sure," he replies, patting Thor on the shoulder as he follows Tony out the room and to his workshop, "Are you finally going to tell me why you've been meeting with Helen Cho?" he teases, and Tony smiles at him minutely as he puts in the access codes to the door.
"Yes, actually."
Bruce is honestly surprised by this.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Helen thinks… Look, here's the thing, if you feel uncomfortable with it, or if you don't want to help out with this, no one is going to blame you, but we do need you to say that right off the bat, because we may need to find more people then, and that's not going to be easy, but I don't want you to feel like you have no other choice—"
"But you kind of don't have another choice," comes Helen's voice from across the lab, and Bruce blinks at it — he didn't know Helen was at the compound.
"Helen—"
"Tony, we've been through this. Bruce is brilliant, and with him helping out, we can actually get this done. You have your part to play, now let other people do theirs."
Bruce reigns in a scoff at that, because asking Tony to delegate is like asking a fish not to swim, but, strangely enough, the man only swallows, and turns to Bruce, his expression serious.
"You are aware of the plan I and Shuri have going on, right?"
"Replace the gauntlet, get the stones, and undo what Thanos did?" he says, which sounds way too simple to work, but isn't that the answer sometimes? Something so ridiculously simple that no one else has thought of it before?
Tony nods, bouncing at the balls of his feet, a nervous tick Bruce had always thought of as childish and energetic, but now feels like Tony is trying to flee.
"That's the gist of it, yeah. Rocket has been a huge help with it, actually. Nebula told me he's quite good at engineering, which is not a sentence I ever thought I'd say, but, you know. I've got backup for that part."
"And there's another part to the plan, which you haven't informed us of yet?" Bruce guesses, and Tony gives him a small smile.
"Got it in one, Jolly Roger," he says, and then sobers up again, sighing, "There's no way a human can handle the power of the stones, gauntlet or no gauntlet. The… dwarf that made that thing made it specifically for Thanos, and there's no way a human could handle that much power, not with what we have available now. Shuri is helping, of course, because vibranium has a better chance at this than any of our common metals and alloys, but…"
"It's not enough."
"It's not enough," Tony repeats, nodding along.
"So…" he trails off, because if Helen is saying they need help, it's because there's something they think they can do.
"Do you remember when I told you about the Mandarin?" Bruce nods, intrigued and worried already, and he doesn't even know their plan yet, "Remember anything about Extremis?"
"Tony—" he starts, a warning in his tone.
"It's stabilized, Bruce. If it wasn't, I wouldn't even bring this up. I balanced that stuff out so we could get it out of Pepper, and then we, I and Helen, we buried that shit deep, because— well, just because something is stable, it doesn't mean it's safe."
"I'm glad we agree on that, at least," Helen mutters, and Bruce looks at her for a second, seeing that she's not exactly thrilled with this plan of theirs.
"So you plan on… what? Injecting yourself with Extremis, and then hope for the best?"
"No. I plan for the both of you to inject me with Extremis, and have it work on healing me long enough to do what needs to be done, and then get that gauntlet off of me, so I can heal. And then the two of you are going to get Extremis out of me, like we did with Pepper."
"This does not sound… safe. At all."
"The margin of risk we're taking is high," Helen tells him, and Bruce can tell she's frazzled already, "But there's a chance we'll succeed. As Tony said, it is stable now, at the stage we can get it to work, but we'll need to accelerate its working rate as much as possible, and still keep it stable enough that Tony won't implode when it's activated — Extremis, the way we managed to stabilize it, it doesn't start acting until it has something to react to. Unless he's injured after implantation, it won't activate, and I only plan on him getting injured when he has the gauntlet and has made it work enough to…" she waves her hand about, and Bruce gets it — it's hard for science people to trust things like magical jewelry and warlocks predicting the future by looking at it, "Get whatever done."
"Would be a festive way to go, though — explode and take Thanos with me," the man says, a forced grin on his face, "Your goal is to try and make this insane part of it work, while I, Shuri and Rocket get the gauntlet done, and Nebula and Thor hunt the purple menace down and get the jewels to power it up."
Bruce needs a minute to even begin to contemplate an answer to that — he notices that Tony trusts him, three aliens and a doctor, along with a 16 year old girl, but he hasn't brought in any of his old teammates into his plan.
The other two people in the room seem to know he needs this time to process, but he starts shaking his head.
"The amount of things that could go wrong—" he begins, but Tony is already shrugging it off.
"All of them accounted for as much as we can. This is the plan, this is what we have to get done, and there's no room to doubt this — it is going to happen. Now, are you going to help us, or should I start making the calls to shady characters who may be able to help out about half as much as you can, and thus, making this even more difficult than it already is?" Tony steamrolls, and Bruce sees then that Thor isn't quite right — he needs to keep an eye on Tony, but he also has to help, because he sees now, something that the others probably don't particularly want to see, because, so far, they have always come back in mostly one piece: this may be the time that Tony has to sacrifice himself to get this done.
And Bruce loves him enough, and knows him enough, to actually help him get there.
"Alright," he breathes deeply, cleaning his glasses as he's at it, "Show me what you have so far."
He hopes this will be worth it.
X
They leave for Wakanda at nightfall. The quinjet, beauty that it is, holds them and their equipment, and won't raise any flags, mostly because no government is stable enough to give a shit about what they do. If they told them all they were going to have a dance off with Thanos, they'd just take their word for it and let them go — any chance that anything can be fixed, and they're taking it.
Shuri had sent them the correct approach coordinates, and FRIDAY is flying the jet with no issues, giving Tony space enough to check that everything they need actually came with them. He sees Thor and Nebula to a corner, strategizing, most likely, and he sees Natasha watching Bruce and Helen talking, at the back. Rogers, he knows, is watching him, but he's ignoring it, because that's what he does, and so he looks for a quiet corner, and pulls up the schematics he has almost completed — or as much as he could accomplish without having broader knowledge about vibranium itself. They'll have to rework some things after Shuri sees it, but he's confident that the thing will serve its purpose.
"Mind if I take a look?" asks a rough, small voice to his side, and he looks down to see Rocket at his side.
Tony nods, and the two of them immerse themselves into the works, continuously surprising Tony at how good the raccoon actually is with tech.
"You know…" Rocket starts after they've been at it for a while, almost alone now, only Thor's voice can be heard around them, the others probably resting before the storm really hits. There is a knowing tone in his voice, and Tony has to give it to whatever or whoever created this creature — he considers Rocket as much of a person as anyone else right now, they did a wonderful job, "Once, Quill had to actually hold one of these," he keeps going, nodding towards the six stones in holograms around them, and Tony keeps quiet, because he thinks he knows where this is going, "Just the one. It took all of us, me, and Gamora, and Quill, and Drax, holding hands to spread its power out, so he wouldn't disintegrate," he finishes flatly, making Tony look at him, "All four of us. And Quill's father was an actual planet."
Tony considers lying. He thinks about deflecting, or making up an excuse, but in the end he just shrugs.
"The gauntlet will take care of the power in it. Extremis will make sure I'm alright to do what needs to be done."
Rocket's eyes stay on him for a while, and he knows the raccoon realized he didn't say a word about surviving.
In the end, the other male sighs, and keeps his commentary of the engineering bits, and Tony hears it for what it is — Rogers may not be willing to trade lives, but Rocket knows, just as Tony does, that one life doesn't count against half the universe.
It doesn't count at all.
X
Shuri welcomes them with a wane smile and clear trepidation in her eyes — Tony is again reminded that this is a kid who's been left with a whole country to rule, and now has to help them too.
It's just not fair.
They immerse themselves in their project — Shuri, Tony, and Rocket — and eventually, by the end of the second day, Shuri feels he and Rocket have enough knowledge about vibranium that she can leave them to finish the gauntlet on their own, and then she goes over Helen and Bruce's corner of the lab, and helps them out with Extremis too.
When she comes over, by the next day, she knows what his plan is, she knows he doesn't count on coming back, and she smiles sadly at him when she says that Extremis is as stable as they can possibly make it, at the highest healing rate they could accomplish in a timely manner.
"Thor and Nebula think they have a lead too," she tells him, eyes on the designs he's showing her, trying to find something they might have missed, "They sent word to Okoye that we should be ready to move in two days, at the most. We can start getting this done tonight, finish this up tomorrow, and get to the procedure the day after that."
He nods, taking a deep breath.
He hasn't been able to rest since he went to Titan. When he closes his eyes, all he sees is Peter clinging to him, and Strange calling him Tony in a broken tone.
Maybe when this all gets done he'll be able to finally rest.
She looks like she wants to tell him something else, and Tony waits, hoping she doesn't try to talk him out of it — he doesn't want to be responsible for breaking the heart of a sixteen year old brilliant girl. Instead of talking, she darts forward quickly, and envelops him in a hug for a few seconds, before stepping back, tears in her eyes, and, if he is honest to himself, in his too.
"You'll get it done," she tells him, her voice brooking no arguments.
He nods, and she smiles at him one last time before leaving.
Rocket looks at him quietly, but they don't talk about it — just set out to start production on the gauntlet.
He will get it done.
X
There are very few things in life that Tony wants less than a conversation with Steve Rogers. He is actually willing to die more than he is willing to talk to that man, mostly because he doesn't have the energy, or the will, to put himself through this when he has so much to do and so little time left to get it done.
It doesn't mean he manages to escape it, though, not by a long shot. The compound was big, and it was his, which meant he knew all the good escape spots, but the labs he has to work with in Wakanda are smaller, and he's limited to certain areas of the palace, because, let's face it, it is a palace, and they can't very well give him free reign of it.
It's late at night, and Tony is just making sure everything is set so he can go into the procedure of injecting Extremis with as much confidence as he can — the gauntlet is ready, just a big metal glove, really, spaces for the stones in it, with the black and golden wakandan patterns all over it, forming intricate designs that Shuri didn't have the time to explain, but assured them would make everything come together to contain the power of the stones.
Shuri is off dealing with matters of her own country, and Rocket's gone to talk to Nebula, so they can finish their hunt for Thanos in the next few days.
They are on the end game now.
So when he sees Rogers staring at him through the glass, he sighs, runs a hand over his face, and tries to get a grip on himself so he can deal with this, probably for the last time.
He sees Rogers startle as the doors open to let him in, and the man takes a couple of steps cautiously, seemingly waiting for Tony to acknowledge him before talking.
"What is it, Cap?" he asks, voice tired as he closes the last few schematics and thinks about a shower, food and some sleep. He can't be sleep deprived when he goes in for it, now can he?
"I know I mostly have no right to tell you this, but I'm worried about you," the other man starts, and Tony sighs deeply, because it's one of those talks.
Two weeks late, actually, when every single person who cares about him at all has already had the same one.
"Okay, got that, anything else?"
"Tony—"
"What do you want, Rogers? You're worried, okay, I get it, I'd be worried too if it were anyone else here, but it isn't. We are all worried, and that sucks, but this is what we're doing, and this is what we have to get done to get everyone back."
"I was talking to Bruce, and he seems to think that there's a chance you might not make it."
Tony turns then, stares at Steve with a frown on his face.
"And?" he prods, because by now, everyone knows there's a chance he might not make it. He himself is way more convinced of the fact that he will not make it. But it will be worth it.
"We don't—" he starts, but Tony cuts him off with a bitter laugh.
"—trade lives? Is that what you were going to say?" he asks, and sees Rogers closing his hands into fists by his sides, "Rogers, all we do is trade lives. And by the way, when did you last use that sentence, with Vision? And where is he now?" he pauses for a few seconds, letting that sink in, "If you and Wanda had allowed him to do what he wanted to do, we wouldn't even be here right now. If the stone had been destroyed, we may have had to battle Thanos, but he wouldn't have killed half the universe."
Steve takes a step back at the strength of his words, but Tony isn't done — not by a long shot, because this is his choice, and he'll be damned if he'll let Rogers mess with this.
"But if you want to make yourself feel better, here you go: I'm living on borrowed time. I was supposed to have died on Titan, and I didn't. So if by dying I get to bring people back, if by doing this, I get to save everyone, then this is what I'm going to do," he stops, letting out a deep breath, eyes burning as he stares at Captain America, "How's that for lying down on the wire?" he asks, voice bitter and almost cruel.
"I thought you'd just cut the wire," Steve answers, voice thick with emotion, and Tony finally breaks, gaze on the floor, trying very carefully not to break down, not in front of Steve.
"Took me all this time to realize that sometimes that's not a possibility."
"Why does it have to be you?" Steve asks after a minute, and Tony swallows dryly at that, biting his lip for a second before exhaling sharply.
"Honestly? Two reasons. First, I don't trust anyone else to actually manage this. I don't think any of us is equipped to deal with it, but I do know that I can get it done, and not let that amount of power overwhelm me, because after Ultron, and after… everything, I know what happens when you think you have all the power."
Steve blinks at the honesty of the answer.
"And the other reason?"
Tony takes a deep breath before answering, because it's something he's not particularly fond of thinking about, but he knows he has to.
"I'm the most expendable."
"Tony," he tries, but Tony holds up a hand, stopping the argument from following.
"Look, Steve, I know this is not how you play, but this is how we have to play this. It's going to happen. You can be bitter about it, or you can try and argue about it, but all you're doing is making this harder for me, and everyone else."
"This isn't fair," he ends up muttering, and Tony scoffs.
"Do you honestly see any other way?"
He sees Steve looking around the lab, and sits again, tired and worn out from the work and the situation and Steve's presence.
"How's Extremis supposed to work?" the man ends up asking, and Tony arches an eyebrow, and thinks he should have a talk to Bruce about not babbling.
"What do you know about it?"
Steve shrugs.
"I heard Bruce and Helen talking about how that's what's supposed to keep you alive when the power goes through. They didn't seem sure it was a good idea. Is it like the serum?"
Tony shakes his head.
"No. Well, not in all the ways that matter — your serum and Extremis were designed from different ends, to achieve almost the same result, but not quite. This is supposed to heal what is wrong in record time — the first tests were about regrowing limbs, recovering whole parts of someone's body, in a matter of minutes. But it's unstable, mostly. It can be injected in someone, but we don't know how that's going to affect people long term — we can stabilize it to get it out, which is what Pepper had to do when she had this in her system, and it's what I'm going to do if I make it back."
"But you don't think you will," Steve presses on, and Tony sighs again, in defeat. Rogers won't be happy until he breaks Tony down to his smaller particles, will he?
"I'm taking every precaution, and I'm doing everything I can think of, on my end, but, I'm gonna be real here, Rogers: I'm just hoping this shit will hold off long enough for me to undo what Thanos did. I'm told one of the stones almost consumed Quill, and his father was some kind of god-planet hybrid. I don't know how Ultron managed to get that stone on the body he was growing, or how Vision dealt with it, but Shuri theorizes the vibranium in there had something to do with it, which is why we're here, and not at home, trying this without putting a sixteen year old at risk again. I'm doing what I can, but I think that with you, at least, I can be honest — it doesn't look good."
"And you're okay with that?" Steve's voice is rough and tired and sad, and Tony doesn't know what to do here — Steve has no right to do this now. To act as if he cares, as if Tony dying won't be a plus down the line somewhere. It's not fair, and Tony wants to punch him for making Tony the unattainable thing of this turn, to turn him into the reason Steve is going to feel bad and guilty, because there's always something.
"Look, bottom line here?" he starts, turning his back on Steve, and looking for something to do, to finish, to get ready, because his procedure is tomorrow, and he doesn't want to leave anything to chance, seeing as he doesn't know how useful he is going to be until his body adapts to Extremis, "I'm betting everyone gets pardoned after bringing half the universe back. You'll have the team again. You'll have Barnes, and Wilson, and Wanda, and everyone else."
"But not you."
"I would think for you that'd be a plus," he replies cuttingly.
"Tony—" Steve's voice is absolutely broken, and Tony's had enough.
"No," he states simply, turning back around, and walking towards Rogers, fire in his heart because he is done with this. Done. "You don't get to do this. I have people worried about me, and who are doing their damn best to make sure I get back from this in one piece, as much as they can. I have a best friend who's doing everything he can to make this work, and people at my company who are trying to keep everything together as we do this little feat called bringing half the universe back. There are people who care about me, about whether I live or die after a mission, but you are not one of them. And just because there's a chance I might not come back from this one, this doesn't give you the right to act like you care at all."
"I never wanted—"
"You left me in Siberia, Steve, on my own, with no help. You left me, after attacking the thing that until a couple of months earlier was keeping me alive. I made it back, because I always make it back, but it wasn't because of you — you made your choice to put Barnes above everything, and now you have to deal with that. I don't care if this hurts you. I don't care that you don't want to fucking trade lives," he says the last words mockingly, and Steve flinches from him, "I don't care. If I do die, if I don't make it back, believe me, I'll be hurting, I'll be dying knowing I caused pain to people who don't deserve it — but you're not one of them. You don't get to pick and choose when I'm your friend and when I'm your enemy. It's one or the other, and when you left me in a broken armor in Siberia so you could save the guy who murdered my parents, you made your choice very clear."
There's silence.
Tony waits, because taking that off his chest helps, but not as much as he had thought it would — it doesn't bring them back, and it doesn't heal him miraculously. Maybe, if he actually thought he would have the chance to make it back alive, he would try and patch this up, but he can't, not now.
Rogers finally looks at him, eyes clear and bright in the artificial light.
"I'm so sorry," he whispers.
"It doesn't matter now," Tony answers, a repeat of what they said to each other when he got back from Titan, but he thinks that now Steve finally understands — it's not the pain that he caused that doesn't matter now, it's the fact that he's sorry. It doesn't matter, because Tony is done with this, because he has no time left to figure this out, and it doesn't matter if Steve is sorry or not, they do not have time enough to fix it.
It doesn't matter now.
Rogers nods once, and then he leaves.
Tony rethinks his plan — goes to his room, showers, eats, and tries very hard to fall asleep.
Only a couple more days, and everything will be over.
X
It should come as absolutely no surprise that Tony Stark hates medical procedures with a passion.
If he could never get checked out, ever, for anything, for the rest of his life, he would die a happy man — between Afghanistan, the arc reactor, paladium poisoning, Extremis and the surgery after that, he had had enough medical issues to last him a life time, but it wasn't over.
Just one more, he thinks, as he gets ready for this.
He asked people not to be around and, truly, few of them have come by. Rhodey, however, had flown the night before to be with him for it, because his best friend wouldn't allow him to go through this on his own.
He doesn't deserve Rhodey.
They look at each other during prep, and Tony can feel his friend's trepidation — he may have left a few details out of the explanation he had given him before, because he knows Rhodey would try and talk him out of it, and if there's one person who actually could, it's him, and Tony can't waver.
He lies down on the medical bed, swallowing dryly, staring at the medical equipment around him, and lets out a weak chuckle.
"God, I hate this," he mutters, and Rhodey clearly sees this as his opportunity.
"Why not let someone else do it, then? Why not give this to someone else to bear? Why does it have to be you?" Rhodey's voice is tired, so tired. It's like he's been supporting he weight of the world on his shoulders and now it's showing, and Tony hates that he's the one doing that to his best friend, but he has to do this. He has to.
"He called me Tony," he answers, and Rhodey merely frowns, not seeing how that's an answer to his questions, "Strange, when he saw all those futures — he called me Tony. It took even Rogers months to call me that. Even you, it took you weeks of classes with me around so you'd do it. And he called me Tony after seeing the future, and it wasn't just a normal, hey, that's your name, so I'm going for it, it was… It had something behind it," Tony turns to stare at his best friend then, knowing he looks more fragile than he actually is, what with the hospital gown and the IV drip already in for his procedure, "How broken do you think things got, when the odds were different, how much did he see me going through, that with those futures I went from Stark to Tony to a man who didn't even like me, who, only hours before, had told me he would let me and a kid die if he had to?"
Rhodey sighs then, because it's clear there's nothing else he can do.
"Pretty bad," he agrees, and Tony nods at him.
"So, I'm avoiding that. This gets done, and we get everyone back, and then we get this out, and there will be no need for anyone to say my name like that again."
He knows Rhodey knows him enough not to buy the bald faced lie he just told, to actually believe he's that optimistic, but his best friend swallows dryly and nods, a hand coming up to grip his shoulder for a moment before hugging him tight.
"I'll hold you to that."
Tony only smiles as he watches Rhodey go, lying down when Bruce and Helen come into the room with him.
He closes his eyes, letting the anesthesia wash over him, and hopes that, when he wakes up, he'll be closer to the end than now.
Whatever end that is.
X
When he wakes up, all he feels is… warm.
He's so warm.
Tony had never noticed how cold he ran until this moment, because his body feels like it has a gentle fire centered on his chest, and it feels good, warming him up from the inside out.
He opens his eyes, and realizes that something's wrong, no matter how good he feels — something is beeping angrily around him, and Helen is talking fast as he puzzles what could have gone wrong already, this is the only plan they have, he can't let them down before they even began, but then the doctor seems to notice his eyes are open and she stops and stares — he can almost see her gasp behind her mask.
"Tony, are you with us?" he turns his head slightly, and sees Bruce — behind him, there's Steve, and Natasha and Rhodey, all of whom look wrecked, and on the other side, he can see Shuri, her smart eyes never leaving the data she's following.
"What happened?" he asks, voice raspy, and finally he feels something other than warmth — he aches, as one does after being put through a very intense workout.
Tony tries to sit up and realizes he doesn't have a drip anymore, and something in the room smells vaguely of smoke.
Rhodey takes a cautious step forward and hands him a glass with a straw, and he drinks carefully, but gratefully.
At the corner of the room, Shuri sighs in relief.
"All clear," she tells Cho, and everyone in the room seems to relax at once.
"What happened?" he repeats, and Bruce takes off his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt — a nervous gesture Tony has seen a hundred times these past few days.
"Extremis wasn't supposed to get activated until you got hurt," Bruce starts, and Tony nods at him, making Bruce frown, "Thing is, you already were hurt. As soon as the procedure for the injection was done, it activated, and we called in reinforcements, because…" he trails off, and Tony nods.
"In case you needed backup, if I woke up raging and trying to kill everyone."
"Basically, yes," Helen agrees, and Tony nods at them, looking at Shuri — strangely enough, he trusts her to tell him the truth instead of palliatives right now.
"Did it work? Are we still on for the next part?"
Shuri nodded, but Tony could see something in her eyes — anger, possibly.
"Extremis activated because you had issues in your chest — it wasn't healed like it should have been. Those weren't wounds from the surgery we were aware you went through," she explains, her accent somehow more clipped, and her eyes firmly on the other side of the room — on Steve, Tony realized.
Oh.
This was so not the time for this kind of thing.
"Shuri—" he starts, but she looks at him sharply, a hand raised, and he can see it now: a Princess. This is not a smart girl, or just a scientist, this is a Princess, the ruler of whole country in her brother's absence, and if she thinks she has the right to be angry about something, she will be, no matter what Tony says.
"When my brother took all of you in, he thought he was doing it because you had been wronged — not that he disagreed with Stark, but because he knew the solution wouldn't be keeping all of you in prison. He thought he was doing the right thing. I'm almost glad he is not here to see what I saw just now, because anyone who does the kind of damage you did to someone you call a friend is not worth the dangers my brother put all of us in."
Tony isn't brave enough to look at Steve right now, but he does take in a deep breath, and he notices the difference — he's not in pain.
He can't remember how long it's been since he hasn't been in pain — probably before that ill-fated trip to Afghanistan. Even after the surgery to remove the shrapnel, he had never been the same. Too much intervention, too much space in his chest had been used to keep him alive, and he knew he had lost many things back then, but he had never realized the pain until right now, when he feels none.
A part of him is relieved, and he can't think of a moment when he's been more grateful — if he has to die today, or tomorrow, or a week from now, he'll live his final moments free from pain, at least this pain.
"The damage was already there, Shuri," he starts, "I didn't realize it would impact the procedure, because it's been there for years — ever since I had the shrapnel removed."
"No, actually," Helen intervenes, and Tony is grateful that she isn't directing that anger towards him, because he can't remember a time when he saw Helen this angry, "I was there for that procedure — you weren't 100%, we warned you, you would never be a 100% again, that your chest wouldn't be the same, and your lung capacity would be reduced, but the damage, the actual damage was gone. What we saw now, Tony, what Extremis healed…" she trails off, and Tony finally raises his eyes to look at Steve, and the man looks broken.
Because he did that.
Tony knows Steve is aware of that, Tony knows Steve feels guilty for it. And now, now that the other man has seen the extension of the damage he's done, of what that shield into his chest made, Tony feels his own heart ache, because he can't hold a grudge against that much despair.
"Steve—" he starts, and then he has to cut himself off, because Okoye invades the room.
"They found Thanos — we have to go. Now."
And that's when he runs out of time.
X
Thanos is not really holding his own when they arrive — a scramble to get everyone outfitted and ready for combat, another struggle for Tony to find his bearings with no suit, with making peace with the fact that he would have to sit out the fight, that his only defense would be the people around him, and a glove on his hand — Thanos is toying with both Nebula and Thor, and Tony knows, he knows deep in his bones, that they are just stalling for time, for them to get there, to free the stones so Tony can—
Well, so Tony can do what he came here to do.
He doesn't follow the fight, because that part is not up to him. He knows, from what the others said, that Thor can handle Thanos, but he is surprised to see that, when the time for the final strike to be delivered, the god stands aside, and allows Nebula the choice of doing it.
Thanos is on his knees, a smirk on his face as he faces the creature he seems to have poured most of his cruelty into, and it is only then that Tony dares approach them.
Nebula is ready — her face is contorted in anger, and bitterness and sadness, but Tony knows that she will do it when the time is right. He approaches them trying to look more confident than he feels, and the Titan stares at him, smirk slowly fading away.
"You would have made a fine child of Thanos'," he tells Tony, who shakes his head, takes a deep breath, and nods at Thor, who grabs the broken gauntlet from Thanos hands, careful not to touch the stones, and pulls.
In a second, everything changes — at Thor's touch, the gauntlet falls apart, and the stones scatter on the ground. Tony puts on his own gauntlet, and drops to his knees, to gather them all, heart beating faster and faster every time he moves.
He hears Thanos yelling, he hears Nebula's answering scream of rage, a weapon firing, the sound of a shield flying by, and finally the sound of a body dropping to the floor.
When the last stone is in his hand, when he drops is on the glove, his body is already burning, from the inside out, and he doesn't even have the full power yet.
He looks up, terrified, as terrified as he was when he saw space through a wormhole, and he can see his fear reflected back at him in Steve's eyes.
The last stone falls into place, and Tony closes his eyes, ignoring the explosion going on inside of him.
Undo what he did, he thinks, fist closing.
And then there's nothing.
X
For a minute there, Steve forgets to watch the target — he forgets what he and Thor and Nebula and all the others had trained and talked about when it came down to this fight with Thanos, because, staring at Tony, his whole body freezes.
Unprotected, nothing but a thin t-shirt and jeans, that strange glove on one of his hands and trepidation in his eyes, Tony kneels on the ground, collecting the stones that are going to kill him.
Steve is absolutely certain of it.
Thor and Nebula take care of Thanos, and Steve only has to act once, throwing his shield when the Titan tries a last desperate attempt to harm his daughter — the shield knocks him down, Nebula shoots him, and Thor embeds the ax in his skull, and suddenly, it is over.
Again, he feels the quiet around them, and he looks away from Thanos' prone form on the ground to stare at Tony, and he promptly loses his breath.
Tony has the last stone in his hand, staring at Steve with despair in his eyes, so clearly terrified it makes Steve's heart break all over again.
The man drops the last stone on the gauntlet, his fist closing, and Steve can't look away.
He hears a gasp by his side, and sees all the others staring at Tony too — Tony, eyes closed, shining brighter than anything around them, in bright gold, red, yellow and green, bright blue and purple.
Tony isn't moving, but his body is — he is lifted from the ground, as if by a gentle breeze, a haze of golden dust around him, and suddenly, soundlessly, it explodes.
It starts on his left hand, the hand with the gauntlet, and it spreads, as rain around them, so bright and so heavy Steve has to shield his eyes.
The same quiet as when everyone disappeared is around them then — a hushed whisper of things coming back, breathed out again into the world by the dust.
"Steve," he hears the whisper before he sees Bucky, and he feels as if his legs are going to give out, but his friend reaches for him, and he is there, he is there, solid and back, and around them, everything is bright and sound has come back into the world.
A green woman is crying in Nebula's arms as a man in a red leather jacket hugs them, along with a bald, marked man.
Rocket has Groot clutched tight against him, and Okoye's eyes shine with raw emotion as she pulls her King to her in a desperate embrace. Sam has his arms around Natasha, and Thor is nowhere to be seen for a moment — all of it takes maybe two seconds for Steve to register, and then, in the middle of this relief of victory, of the rush of we did it, comes a desperate shout from a voice too young to know this much pain.
"Mister Stark!"
There is a teenager kneeling on the grass, his body covered in a suit, and Steve knows him, fought him even — the Spider kid from Berlin, who, he knows, Tony sees as his protégé.
"Come on, mister Stark, wake up. Come on!"
Steve starts walking towards him, and he knows the others are following, because the scene is heartbreaking — Tony has fallen face first into the ground, and the kid has pulled him against his own body, rocking back and forth.
At his side, a man who can only be Strange, by the cloak on his shoulders, is looking down, a grave shadow on his face.
"Why isn't he waking up?"
Finally the kid looks up at them, and his eyes are full of tears. He turns to Strange first, and then the others, eyes accusing in his immense sadness.
"Why aren't you doing anything?" he shouts at them, cradling Tony's body closer to himself, "You have to help him!"
And then, just as Steve is going to say that he doesn't know if they can help, that he doesn't think there's anything to do, Strange is already looking back at Thor, who stands there, a strong, black man on one side of him, Loki on the other.
The three walk over, and Strange follows — Thor stands beside Steve as the rest of them approach the kid.
"Peter, I need you to let go of him now," Strange starts, his voice cautiously gentle, but the kid seems to want to refuse him.
"Are you going to help him?" he asks, narrowing his eyes at the two strangers.
"We are."
Steve is surprised when it's not Strange who answers, but Loki.
Suddenly, the man in the red leather jacket comes forward, and he pulls Peter up, hugging him to his side.
"Hey, kid, it's going to be okay, all right? They're going to do the right thing there, come on," as he talks, he leads Peter to the rest of them.
The black man with strange eyes slowly reaches out, Strange in a battle stance beside him, ready to react, and grasps the gauntlet.
Steve is so distracted by the act itself, he almost misses the wide-eyed look of fear that crosses Loki's face before he throws out his hands, a shield of what Steve can only assume is magic covering them, and protecting them from the blast that comes not a second later.
On the other side of the shield, bright gold is once again glittering around Tony, and Steve panics, because even the three magicians present don't seem to know what to make of it.
He is about to ask them what is going on when he sees Tony opening his eyes, shining just as golden as the mist around him.
And then the screaming starts.