Chapter 6

It was suppose to be a routine mission. Dr. Doom and his doom bots were causing all sort of Chaos on Manhattan island. The Avengers were called. Yet, the mission turned out to be anything but ordinary. The doom bots had been upgraded to be able specialized for each of the Avengers. While Tony was able to, spur of the moment, rework the Iron man suit to function under the electromagnetic waves that were being thrown his way. The other Avengers were not so lucky. They had been fighting for hours. The doom bots seemed relentless and Dr. Doom was doing something that Tony knew would alter the world forever. That is when Tony decided to take everything in. Take in the entire situation and pray for a plan of action.

He felt sweat roll down the back of his neck as he stood in the middle of the disaster of an area. He couldn't believe that they were at the cusp of the end. He knew it was the end. He was a genius after all. He could see the writing on the wall while everyone else was still holding on to the hope that things would get better. That they would pull out of this one. He knew they wouldn't be. He could tell that Black Widow was at the end of her rope. Blood coated her side and she was trying to hide the fact she had a limp now. Hawkeye was struggling to find arrows he had used to kill the bots and fighting to stay alive. The Hulk was wavering, shrinking while he still fought. Thor was bleeding and panting, swing Mjolnir a little slower. Not that anyone else could see this all like he did in one sweeping moment. Steve seemed to not be slowing down. But this could not be done by one soldier alone. No, he would not be able to stop Dr. Doom and that horrible device that the man was struggling to start up.

Tony felt a sickness settle in his stomach as he realized what he had to do. It was funny that it would come down to this again. He tried so hard to be the selfish and arrogant man he portrayed to the world, but he could not. He just could not be that person. It was a great cover, but at the end of the day he was too selfless to be that way. He had finally got together a family that he could call his own. People who understood him. People who cared about him. He could not let them die like this. He thought of Pepper, in the middle of her first trimester. Glowing and radiant. He thought of the joy the entire team felt when she announced it. The look on Natasha's face was pure and unadulterated pride. They both had decided to have kids. They both wanted it.

"J.A.R.V.I.S Code: Sierra Tango Echo Victor Echo 1-9-4-0."

"Sir?" There was a twinge of uncertainty and fear in the tone.

"Do it J.A.R.V.I.S!" Tony snapped as he shot into the air. The A.I muttered an affirmative. Tony was speeding off towards where Dr. Doom was. He tuned into his communication lines.

"Tasha. Listen. Give J.A.R.V.I.S that code I gave you two days ago. It will have everything in it. Clint, Please pull your head out of your ass, Bruce won't." Tony slammed into Dr. Doom. The man was still holding the device. Tony tightened his hold as the man struggled.

"Clint, make sure Banner enters his code into J.A.R.V.I.S as well."

"TONY! What are you doing?" Steve's voice called through the ear piece. It was now clear to their fearless leader that something was up. Clint and Natasha were saying that they had lost visual of Iron Man. Dr. Doom was screaming something about the device. Tony knew already. He already knew. There was no going back. He flew higher.

"Steve...I...the last six months have been great. I...I love you. Know that much." That was when he cut of his communication line, not wanting to hear anything more in fear it would cloud his judgement. He sped up towards the atmosphere, J.A.R.V.I.S blessedly silent. The device ticked once more, before it exploded between him and Dr. Doom. The forced of the explosion killed Dr. Doom on impact and sent Iron Man flying across the sky. The force was enormous.

The Avengers were silent. The Doom bots stuttered the died where they stood. No one said a word. They stood there in stunned silence. Tony, once again, had sacrificed himself. Only this time, they felt the sick dread that he wasn't coming back. It took hours to finally locate where Tony and the Iron Man suit. Pepper had called to warn them that they would likely walk into a horrific scene. She had found out that Tony had activated the failsafe measured for all the suits. Meaning they all exploded and became unrecognizable. Steve felt like bile was taking up permanent residence in his mouth. He had lost friends and a love before, but Tony had been everything to him in this time. He had been his brother in arms, best friend and partner. They had been dating for a little bit, taking things slowly for Tony's sake, as well as his own if he was honest. Now he regretted it. He would never know what it would be like to finally have all of Tony.

The scene they came upon was not what they had been expecting to see. Sure everything was burnt, and there were pieces of metal and circuitry all over the place. But there were no body parts. There was no body. Nothing. Steve walked up the face plate. He picked it up and brushed the dirt and the bits of rock. He turned it over, finding some blood on it, but not at all the amount he had expected. He stood there, looking as the Avengers and SHEILD agents moved around to pick up the pieces. He held the face plate like it was a life line. Tony's body was missing. No one could find any evidence of his body ever being present. They found only car tracks leaving the area. SHEILD was sending agents to follow the tracks.

"Do you think he survived?" Banner asked, a sense of hope there. Steve did not say anything. Instead he clasped Bruce not he shoulder and squeezed before walking towards the jet. He did not want to think about that possibility. He was in a state of shock, he knew that much. He stared down at the mask in his hand. It wasn't until the first tear hit the plate and streaked down the side of it did he realize that he was crying. He had once again lost his anchor to this world. He felt so lost without Tony there to poke at him. He remained there, crying over the face plate. Tony's last words haunted him even more in that moment because he had been unable to tell Tony that he felt the same.