Notes: For TigerLily. title and opening quote from Stephen Danos's Crowd Noise. No profit garnered, not mine. Thanks to A for beta help. All mistakes mine.
Still drain the battery you've earned
Still your knees when nervous
Stillborn is a something I refuse to experience
Tony woke up naked, and he needed to pee.
It wasn't his bed. It was a version of his bed in a version of his house. It was years ago and he was going to die of palladium poisoning, he'd alienated Pepper, Phil was watching over him, and Nat was working at Stark Industries. Which was in chaos.
He woke up, went to pee, and was still naked when Phil came in the room and told him to get to work. He said it dryly, like Phil Coulson would.
Tony was stuck in a loop. It happened the same every day and had happened the same every day. He remembered being in yet another fight, something with aliens and magic. So this wasn't some moral tale where he just had to convince himself of the value of friendship or that unicorns could really fly. He was probably going to die in this loop and not even know it.
He'd killed himself every day for a week, including full incineration of his body. Didn't matter. He barely worried about how easy he found it to bring about his own death.
He woke up naked, and he needed to pee.
He tried to do the moral fairy tale thing. He put on the suit and fixed things. He went up really high and screamed for Heimdall. "You're watching, I know you are, hot stuff. Loki has ways in and out of Asgard. He's feeling neglected. Keep an eye on him. Fury is about to start working on the Tesseract. You should get it out of this world."
He flew to Slovokia and found the twins. He gave them money. He went to Nick Fury with a list of Shield members who were Hydra agents and told him to get to work on that instead scary blue boxes.
None of that mattered. It wouldn't matter in the future, it was all empty gestures.
"Maybe it's like that classic X-files episode," Coulson said. "You're not on a loop, you're part of someone else's loop."
"How do I tell?" Tony hadn't bothered to get dressed. If Phil was rolling his eyes, he would be doing the same tomorrow. Which would be just like today. "Wouldn't whomever this is also remember every day?"
"Possibly you're not trapped in an X-files episode," Phil said.
What would you do with infinite days stretching ahead of you? Tony decided to learn Urdu. It was faintly ridiculous he never had before. He knew French and a smattering of phrases in a few other languages. Urdu seemed difficult and useful. Also, harder than it looked. He sat with Jarvis in his lab learning the basics. "Jarvis," Tony said, fingers splayed across the interface. "I miss you, buddy."
"Of course, Sir," Jarvis said. "I presume my memory will have none of this conversation tomorrow?"
"Hasn't so far," Tony said.
It didn't.
He drove to Stark Industries and told Pepper had been dying and he was about to fix it and also, he loved her and he tried to do without ever saying 'I' which was a linguistic feat. Then she kissed him. Then he told her he was from the future and he should have said those things to her. "In the real version, I royally fucked this up."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" She kissed him anyway, again. "So I'm not real?"
"I don't know, it's magic and aliens. Are you a reflection of my consciousness, are you Pepper that I have in my head reflecting back at me? Is this more of a simulacrum creation where the actual time and space have been suctioned off into a bubble? It's a puzzler," Tony said.
They had sex anyway, great getting back together sex, Pepper on the desk on her back with her insanely long legs open around him. "I love you so much," he said.
One day he went the whole day, all the way to midnight, just having sex with Pepper, sweaty sticky glorious sex in her bed and he was balls deep inside her when he came.
Then he woke up, naked, and he needed to pee. Urdu and Pepper, that could last him a long time. "In your future, are we together?" She pushed her hair out of her face. They were being athletic this time.
"We broke up, we got back together, actually you're pregnant which was not expected, at all," Tony said. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to fuck that up."
"Oh, God, I'm not ready to be a mom," she said.
"Not in this now," Tony said. "And you're having a baby with me, so that'll probably end badly."
"But we love each other," she said. "So that's one up on my parents."
"Did I know that?"
"My parents never loved each other? I can't imagine I told you that. I don't like to admit it. My mom got pregnant, she told me when I was 21 she only had sex with my dad because she was going to dump him. Instead, ten years of her life, whoosh," Pepper said. "Then they got divorced, thank God, and they each actually fell in love with other people."
"Good for them," Tony said. "I've never met your parents."
"My dad and I don't talk, my mom -"
"Passed away two years ago, in this time, I remember," Tony said.
"You paid for the funeral," Pepper said. "You even came and then you insulted my half-brother."
"He insulted you first," Tony said.
"I assumed that," Pepper said. "I think my parents loved their other kids better."
"They were idiots," Tony said. "You are the most lovable person I've ever met."
"You're very biased," Pepper said. "But thank you."
"Wait, I'm biased because I love you? The question is -"
"The question is settled," Pepper said, with a small smile. "I had the therapy, I know my worth."
"Well, me too," Tony said. "Except I didn't have the therapy. I really should."
But he was embarrassed and ashamed somehow, like maybe that was a real thing in Pepper's life and after all these years, he'd never had that conversation with her.
He woke up naked, and had to pee. He said hi to Phil and studied more Urdu. By the afternoon, he found himself driving to Stark Industries. Instead of Pepper's office, he went to Nat. He told her everything which she accepted easily. "Are you being especially gullible? Everyone else took longer to accept the whole Groundhog Day magic alien loop."
"It's your body language," Nat said. "It's the way you talk to me, you like me and trust me overnight."
"I do trust you," Tony said. "Isn't that insane?"
"The future must be very interesting," Nat said.
"Not in a good way," Tony said. "I don't know why I'm saying that, I'm actually very happy, I was happy yesterday. Yesterday before the loop, so really, 2 and a half months ago in time as I'm experiencing it."
"So what's not good?"
He told her about SHIELD and Hydra and watched her face fall. "But we defeat them," she said.
"Especially you," Tony said.
Suddenly they were sitting awfully close, nearly flirting. "So you're clearly just a reflection," Tony said.
"Because if I'm attracted to you, it's all your ego creating my character," Nat said.
"We did have sex once, when Pepper and I were broken up," Tony said. "It was one of those yay we survived the end of the world things, though."
"I don't think I'll ever change enough to have sex with someone I'm not attracted to just because of survival," Nat said.
"I may be on a break from Pepper right now in this now, but we're together in the future. I don't cheat on her," Tony said. He was already undoing the belt on her black dress.
"You're caught in a loop, none of this is really happening, would she really be surprised?"
"Fine," Tony said. "Never let it be said I would avoid the chance to make a huge mistake in my relationship."
It was different than the last time, Natasha was different. He found her strength still a little frightening and a huge turn on. She had world class breasts and he greatly enjoyed getting to hold them.
One time with Nat, as fantastic as it was, was enough to get it out of his system. He went back to Pepper the next day. He talked to her all over again, had sex all over again. So he was stuck in a not unpleasant loop and was getting even better at Urdu. He now woke up naked, had to pee, greeted Phil with a kiss, and then took the suit and went to Pakistan and worked on his language skills. He stayed up until midnight and woke up naked, needing to pee.
It was all over and over, the same and again. "This is probably killing me," Tony said to Jarvis.
"I detect no change in your health," Jarvis said. "You are dying from the palladium."
"I'll fix it tomorrow," Tony said. "I don't mean my health in this simulacrum, or bubble universe loop, I mean my actual body out there. I would really like to live."
"That is refreshing to hear, Sir," Jarvis said. "Do you think that's the revelation you're meant to have to free you?"
"No, there's no revelation, no climactic moment of realization, it's just me, stuck in this magic alien loop, slowly dying," Tony said. "Did I ever tell you about Jarvis? He was my dad's driver."
"Would you like to tell me again, Sir?"
"Stop humoring me," Tony said.
He woke up naked, needing to pee. He went to the bathroom and stared at his face in the mirror. He did not look good. Palladium poisoning was an unpleasant way to go. Maybe today he'd kill Killian and Venko both.
His face in the mirror melted as the mirror melted, as everything melted.
"You're out now," Wanda said.
Tony was in a hospital bed, tubes in a lot of parts of him, including some unpleasant ones. He said, "You broke the loop thing?"
Vision said, "You thought you were in a some sort of loop?"
"Yes, some kind of time loop, repeating the same day over and over again. But I guess I wasn't," he said. "Vision, do you know Urdu?"
"Yes," Vision said, cautiously.
Tony tried to say "how long was I under?"
"Just 3 days," Vision said in English. "Your Urdu sounds quite good."
"How does that even work? How does some space magic allow me to learn a language I don't know? I didn't know it subconsciously. I should have learned it. Where's Pepper and how is she?"
"Here," Pepper said. She came into the room, smiling. She only looked 3 days more pregnant so that was good.
"I didn't change the past, did I? Right? SHIELD didn't root out Hydra before Cap was even unfrozen, right?"
"Nothing you did in your mind actually happened," Wanda said. "We can show you the charts. You were here."
"Yes," Vision said. "There was unusual activity in parts of your cerebral cortex, but you never left the building."
"I want see those, but you know, mostly, I want this catheter out," Tony said. "Thank you, Wanda."
"You're welcome," she said, with no warmth.
He was home in a day, Pepper back next to him in bed. He said, "How could I learn a language I don't know? Did your parents not love each other?"
"Yes," Pepper said, startled and frowning. "I don't think I ever told you that."
"I don't think I ever asked." Tony laid back in bed. "Okay, if it was not an elaborate fantasy, I have to tell you, I had sex with Nat, just once. Is that cheating?"
"I forgive you if it is," Pepper said. She looked concerned.
"It's fine, it's fine. If you're okay, I'm okay. I'll just add it to the list when I meet with that shrink Fury loves so much," Tony said.
"You're actually getting therapy?" Now Pepper was smiling.
"I forgot to tell you," Tony said. "No one wants to hear me contemplate the physics of my time loop, so I'm paying someone to do it."
She kissed him despite his ridiculously bad lie about his reasons for therapy.
He woke up naked, and he had to pee. He turned and kissed Pepper lying next to him first.