The flight back home was long and lonely.

Fury and Natasha had gusted away with the wind. Steve and Sam followed in their wake, less like shadows and more like echoes, while Pepper traveled to the Tower with Agent Hill. Rhodey went home and took War Machine with him.

With Loki nowhere to be found, absent since the hospital, Tony had resigned himself to a quiet flight home in a chartered jet. He'd closed his eyes and tried to sleep through it. It didn't work.

When he arrived at the mansion it was empty. This home didn't feel like his own; it never had, not since the first time someone had destroyed it, and certainly not after the second time. It was as sprawling and luxurious as it had always been, but what had made it his was gone.

The ocean had swallowed his Mother's piano. Howard's mementoes were gone. Anything that had survived the first attack had been taken in the second, and all the knick nacks and sentimentalities that Tony hadn't thought to store away were lost. He hadn't been able to find the heart to bring whatever he had left into this… place.

JARVIS didn't welcome him home. Tony bypassed the living spaces with a mindless ease, dipping past the piano-that-wasn't-Maria's to go down a spiral staircase into the lower level. There was only one place that mattered anymore.

The workshop was the same. The original structure had never been completely destroyed, so Tony had taken the construction efforts as a refurbishment. Layers upon layers of natural rock wall were to thank for that.

He blinked into the retinal scanner at the door and the locks hissed open. He could already hear the bots whirring and chirping somewhere deep in the room.

"Welcome home, Sir," JARVIS greeted, calm as always.

Tony collapsed into the leather of his couch, closing his eyes against the lights. JARVIS dimmed them in response.

"Hey, J."

"You have eighty-seven voice messages and three-hundred-and-sixty-two-"

"Dump 'em."

Tony rolled onto his side and tucked his arm underneath him, careful of his bruised ribs. It was quiet until he heard DUM-E rolling by, clattering around the workshop table and knocking something to the ground before finally making it to the couch. Tony cracked one eye open to see the claw and lens that were peering over the armchair at him.

"Missed you, too, bud."

He patted DUM-E's support strut and the bot chirped before he rolled away again. Tony sighed.

"Mister Keener asked that-"

"Have I ever told you about my parents, Jarv'?" he interrupted, staring at the blank space in front of him.

"Yes, Sir. Your father was Howard Stark. Your mother was Maria Carbonell. They were married on-"

"No, have I ever told you about them?"

JARVIS paused, no doubt scanning his logs for any mention of the Starks. There was a soft ping as he made a decision on the matter.

"No, Sir."

Tony closed his eyes. There were a million things he could be doing right now - checking in on Harley, trying to track down Loki, finding the Winter Soldier, techno-stalking Pepper, or calling his goddamn therapist - but the grief that bubbled in his chest distracted him from all of that. It couldn't be spoken for, but he felt the need to try. Maybe that would be easier if he weren't alone.

He just wanted Loki. That sweet distraction to everything real and terrible, because he was terribly unreal and chaotic and-

"You're never alone, Master Stark," Edwin Jarvis had told him once, years ago, "Not so long as I'm here. Remember that."

DUM-E dropped something else near the kitchenette. The other bots scrambled to scold and help, prod and poke, all while the ambiance of the workshop hummed around them. JARVIS waited.

"Then tuck in, Jarv," Tony whispered, feeling some comfort soothe the ache in his heart. "You're all I got right now."

Seven days later Tony was tinkering beneath Howard's hovercar when he failed to recognize the tapping sound of heels across the workshop floor.

Consequently, Pepper's voice startled him so badly that he slammed his forehead on the undercarriage and dropped his wrench.

"Fuck's sake!"

He rolled out from underneath the car with one hand on the frame and another on his forehead, glaring up at her from the ground. She stared back down at him, clearly startled by his reaction, but then a calm came over her.

"I see you're doing all right, then."

"I have a heart condition! Don't scare me like that!"

Pepper rolled her eyes. Tony sat up, only pretending to be mad as he wiped grease off his hands with a blackened rag. He was five days into a work binge - he couldn't remember the last time he had taken a shower. Between the sweat, dirt, and soiled clothes, that much was apparent. But luckily, she was used to this sort of behavior from him.

"I was announced, you know." she pointed out, "But who could hear that over this racket?"

"This racket is my racket and you're not allowed to turn it down-" As if on cue, JARVIS lowered the volume, "-You're a traitor, J."

Pepper knelt down and handed him a water bottle. The edge of her skirt crept up over her knees and Tony did his very best not to look (but he did).

"When was the last time you ate?"

He cracked open the bottle and began to drink.

"When was the last time you barged into my workshop?" he challenged.

"Tony."

"This morning. I think. After the appointment?" He stood up in one quick motion, walking around her to the workshop table. Holograms flickered to life in his presence.

"Yes, and I got your results back."

"I'm dying, aren't I?" Tony lamented with every dramatic bone in his body. "It's not like I've got a bear trap around my heart or anything. Wait, you got my results? What are we, married? Wait - are we married? If we are, I get the kids in the divorce. You can have the art collection. And one-third of my retirement - no, three-fourths, you don't buy that many shoes-"

"You know very well I'd never say yes."

"Ouch, Pep'."

"Anyway, you passed with flying colors… for you, at least." she continued, then paused before admitting, "They found an opening for you tomorrow."

Tony's hands paused in the air, leaving the hovercar blueprints to spin freely. Pepper came up to the opposite side of the table. He forced his hands to keep moving, opening up the car and going through the old mechanics. They lapsed into silence.

"You don't have to, you know." Pepper said kindly. "The reactor hasn't given you trouble since the expo, right?"

Tony focused on the project at hand.

"There's nothing wrong with keeping it." she continued, watching him work, "Nothing at all."

Silence again. Tony let it last until he realized he was just staring at the blueprints and getting nowhere, so pushed the hologram back into the table and shook his head.

"S'too bright."

Pepper blinked. "...I'm sorry?"

"At night." Tony explained, tapping the light in the center of his chest. What would happen to that nervous tick afterwards? "It's too bright. Never made a cover. Lights up the damn room like a spotlight."

He reached underneath his shirt and popped out the reactor, rolling it over in his hands for a brief, life-threatening moment. Pepper watched him play with his heart.

"...Nah," he muttered. "Gotta say goodbye sometime."

Shortly before surgery the following day, Tony received a series of text messages.

NATALIA: Hospital's clear. 51. Staying on ur 6.

BIRDMAN: In perch. Clear. Do u really drive ur chauffer?

UNCLE SAM: Block's clear. Staying the door w/ Sam.

They hadn't been lacking in security measures prior to this. Tony's money got him a lot of things, and today it got him a surgeon who was willing to do the operation with only a single assistant, an entire hospital wing to himself, and an Iron Man suit present in the corner of the operating room. With that, JARVIS was crawling through the hospital's networks and Pepper had half the country on standby. But now he had a star-spangled bouncer, Natasha at his door, and Clint (out of hiding?) on the rooftops.

The only thing that would make him feel better about this whole thing was if he had a sorcerer at his side. But there was no finding Loki - there was only waiting for him.

He looked in on the operating room from the gallery, Happy and Pepper standing on either side of him. Natasha was waiting at the door.

"It's time," Pepper encouraged gently. Her hand was on his arm. "Are you sure?"

He nodded, gathering himself. He could die today. Those metal shard around his heart could finally snap shut and it would all be over. No more memories of Yinsen and the cave. No nightmares about palladium. Obidiah pulling his heart right out of his chest wouldn't matter any more. Amora's green gaze would be erased forever.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Probably not, he realized.

Some people thought dying was just another adventure. Maybe it was. But it wasn't an adventure that mattered to the living - he couldn't be Iron Man from the grave. Not yet, anyway, and until the day he could upload his brain onto a computer he had to persevere. What was the point in surviving if something stupid killed you, anyway? If everything you'd be leaving behind was so much better than all the demons that came with life?

"I'll be alright." he assured Pepper, patting her hand and giving it a squeeze. "Always am."

He was lying. She knew it. He didn't care.

"You better be," she whispered. "You're not alone, Tony."

"I know."

He leaned across and kissed her forehead, trying not to linger too long. He shook Happy's hand and clapped him on the shoulder. He shot a quick text to Rhodey to let him know he was about to go under.

And then Natasha shadowed him into the operating room.

"Mister Stark," the Doctor greeted him, sterilized hands held out like in prayer. His assistant lingered behind.

Tony sat down on the operating table and took off his shirt. In the corner of the room JARVIS lit the lights in the suit's eyes, watching him.

"Doctor…?"

"Strange. Steven Strange."

"Great."

Tony shook his head and lay back on the table, staring up at the blinding lights. He felt Natasha's hand on his wrist. It seemed the doctor wasn't going to waste time with small talk, so he closed his eyes and felt a soft pressure on his arm as a needle slid in.

"I tried," Natasha said. Her hand fell on his chest, lingering near the arc reactor. "Couldn't find him."

Tony sighed. The world was already beginning to get hazy.

"Count back from ten, Anthony," Doctor Strange was saying.

"I know," Tony muttered. "Thanks…"

If he died here, he wondered what Loki would do. There was a hiss and release of pressure as Natasha safely stole away with his arc reactor, leaving him with only a soft squeeze to the hand and not another word.

"Ten… nine… eight…"

The world began to fade. It wasn't like falling asleep - it was like teetering between something and nothing.

"...seven… six…"

He blinked against the light and saw the surgeons watching him. Gauging, analyzing, and preparing themselves for the operation of a lifetime.

He didn't realize he was losing consciousness until it was too late. Darkness swallowed him and he leaned ever closer to the edge of oblivion, numb and quiet. Somewhere in that void where time didn't exist and neither did he, a silhouette draped in gold and purple stared at him. It smiled. There was a soft hand on his face and he leaned into it as warmth crawled through his veins.

"You found him," It said.