Tony went out just like anyone would have expected him to: a hero trapped in a giant ball of fire plummeting towards New York City. The brightest stars always have the flashiest burnout.
The only one who probably didn't see it coming was Tony Stark himself. He'd always expected himself to die going all out on a drinking binge in his workshop, trying to silence his own inner guilt. Yes, getting swept to the earth from the aftershock of one of the newest doombots was certainly not the plan.
Tony, the physical Tony at least, laid in a crater several inches deep, his arc reactor had stopped working somewhere between the time he hit the atmosphere and the moment he hit the ground. His suit was smashed to bits, looking more like a piece of crumpled tin foil than a high tech super suit.
The other Avengers gathered around him, Steve throwing down his shield to kneel in front of his fallen friend, "Damn it, Tony," Steve muttered, a rare profanity from the supers soldier, leaning forward to rip the crinkled metal from his body, searching for the bright blue light that would tell him that
Tony would be alright. His hopes dropped, however; when 'Tony's heart had a giant gash in the middle with tons of blood coated wires sticking out in various directions. Tony's skin had taken a sickly gray tint.
"BANNER!" he yelled, and Steve is surprised at how angry he sounds. The same feeling he'd felt on the war front reappeared in his gut.
The process of "Hulking In" was less embarrassing than it had ever been for Bruce. He downgraded to his human form, took the pants offered to him by Clint wordlessly and threw them on, making his way over to Tony as quickly as possible.
"We have to close that wound," he said, tugging on a piece of the fabric on his pants, tearing a large chunk out of them and pressing it heavily to the gaping hole in his Tony's chest, " Steve, hold this here," he commanded. Bruce turned his attention to finding some semblance of a heart beat in his friend's body- and damn it, he hates himself for not checking if if Tony even had a pulse rate to begin with, "Tony, can you hear us?"
No answer.
"Stark- Stark, please," Natasha spoke up and for the first time in a while, she sounded unsure, "Get up, Stark. This isn't funny."
He didn't even twitch.
Clint touched a hand to Natasha's shoulder.
"Man of Iron?" Thor spoke next, "Comrade?"
Nothing.
"Damn it, Tony!" Steve said, "Come on."
They stayed quiet for a long while after that, the high of battle suddenly far too sober.
Bruce leaned back slowly, removing his hands from Tony's person.
"What are you doing?" Steve asked frantically, wanting nothing more than to shake the other man, but he knew that in order to do that, he'd have to move his hands from the bloody cloth from the Tony's chilled chest.
"He's gone, Steve. I can't find his pulse and there's too much blood. His arc reactor must have stopped working long before he even got to us. The shrapnel must of punctured his heart by now."
"But- You're a doctor! Fix him!"
"There's nothing I can do, Steve," Bruce flinched at the harsh look thrown his way, "He was dead before he hit the ground."
Steve ignored him and continued to place pressure on the wound, trying his hardest not to let his strength get ahead of him, "Come on, soldier. Wake up."
"He's gone, Cap," Clint said for the first time, "There's nothing we can do."
The silence wafted through the air again. Steve stood up, wiping his hands off on his uniform.
"He went out in the most glorious way, my friends- In the heat of battle," Thor said, his solemn tone speaking for everyone.
-
Telling Pepper was just as hard as they imagined. She didn't believe them at first, insisting that this was just one of Tony's petty pranks. She demanded they show her some time of proof. She wanted to see him. Steve refused several times to let her see the body, so they made a make shift compromise and brought her his trashed helmet instead. She only looked at it for a moment before storming out og the room, seemingly more angry than sad. Everyone stood awkwardly when they heard her gentle sobbing from behind the door.
No one knew how to comfort her.
-
The city mourned for Tony's death as well. People everywhere showed up to the incredibly open service in the middle of Central Park. Tony's casket was flown in by a state of the art Stark Industries helicopter, descending down from the heavens with several Stark Industry paracutes cushioning the fall. ACDC blasted in the background, blanketing the entire city in "Back in Black."
The Avengers all stood off to the side. Outwardly looking as clean and crisp as usual, but on the inside, they were all dealing with the loss in different ways.
Steve stood tall and proud in his highly decorated military uniform, the metals glinting brightly in the sunlight. His head was reeling, both from the shock of having lost another friend to "war" and having to deal with a gaping hole in his team.
Natasha wore the same dress she did when she seduced him for SHIELD. If anyone noticed her sentiment, no one said anything. Clint stuck closely by her side, his sunglasses hiding his red, slightly puffy eyes.
Thor, dressed in his same Asgardian battle armor stood a little farther off. Mjolnir hung low at his side and he thought about what kind of jokes Tony would make about him having "Mjolnir in his pants." His chest ached badly at the thought that he would never hear Tony's mockeries again.
Bruce hung off in his own secluded corner away from the crowd and other Avengers, partly to minimize the odds of him Hulking out in the middle of the ceremony and partly to hide his guilt from the others. He, of all people, should have been there to convince Tony not to go. The odds of Tony surviving another fall from space was little to none. He's never cursed the big guy more than he did at that moment. Tony was his first friend, the first one to relax around him, even though he had a toiling green rage monster just under his skin.
Tony Stark died that day. The backlash from an explosion caused him to come spiraling back down to Earth in a great big ball of fire. The Avengers will never be the same again.
