Heart of Iron
Summary: Stephen is really proud of how fast he's learning after he makes his first portal but then comes the astral projection that changes his life forever as he comes face to face with a force from a universe not his own and an ancient relic that will change the fate of his world.
Stephen couldn't believe his eyes. It was just ... impossible. It had to be. There was no way this could be true. And yes, he did register a sense of deja vu for having these same thoughts again after the last time he had thought them, and about the same woman, no less. Only difference from last time was that he had thought it impossible for her to be anything more than a glorified ghost.
Now, he wondered just why his life couldn't settle on whether he was pinning after an impossible woman or a woman who was very much possible but it would still be impossible for her to want him.
She was gorgeous. Like, otherworldly gorgeous, whether she glowed that beautiful electric blue light or not. But, for the first time, he could see the real her. Her hair was the color of sinfully dark chocolate and looked softer than silk. Her skin tone was a light olive, as though one of her parents came from a more exotic or simply warmer part of the world or that she simply lived on the beach or something. She was the same height as when they were talking to each other in the Astral Plane, which made her come up to about his neck. Her armor left pretty much nothing for the imagination the way it hugged the curves of her body. She was very gifted in the regards of her body. Her face was pretty, too. Full lips, petite nose, fine eyebrows ...
Her eyes were that same electric blue as he had always known them to be and, for the first time, he felt that they were wrong, as though he had actually expected another color from Toni. Stephen realized he had, as his mind unhelpfully conjured up the images from a long forgotten dreams about twinkling laughter and pretty brown eyes. He has no idea why he has those eyes in his head, but he felt that they would have fit Toni maybe even better than the blue he was so used to, which was just weird.
All in all, Toni looked pretty much the same as when he used to talk to her pretty much every night, except she was now solid like he had been led to believe she couldn't be. Toni was standing right there, in front of him, all powerful and gorgeous, the defender and protector she had always represented herself as, Thanos at her feet and the Infinity Stones merrily spinning around her hand. After so long of not being sure whether she was even still alive ...
Stephen just wanted to hug her and never let go.
"How?" The disbelieving question from Thanos broke their intense eye contact and both sorcerer and should-be-the-sentience-of-a-powerful-relic-but-apparently-wasn't turned their attention to him. The disbelief was written all over his face, too, staring at Toni as though she were a ghost come back to haunt him. "How is this possible?! I destroyed the very essence of you! I could understand if your soul still survived, but this ... This is impossible!"
"No, this is Toni Stark," Toni replied, and that response just sent Stephen's head reeling even more. He had never been one to follow gossip or social media or whatever. He had very little interest in celebrities, having focused too much on his studies and then his own career as a doctor. Of course, he knew who Toni Stark was and he had seen her picture a few times here and there over the years, but he had apparently never connected her with Toni. He felt like an idiot. Even through the color distortion, it should have been obvious, especially since he had seen Toni in a full on business suit a couple of times. "As for you destroying the very essence of me, as you can see," she indicated at her own body, a smirk in place. "You're quite wrong."
"You shouldn't be alive," the Titan persisted and the woman just shrugged.
"I wasn't, until some weeks ago."
"Oh, you crazy little piece of shit," Rhodes breathed, seeming to come to some sort of realization. "Yinsen knew about this, didn't he? Is that why he stopped by?"
"Yinsen, Helen, Wu, JARVIS and I. No one else. Not EDITH, not JOCASTA, not KAREN or you or Pepper or Happy or the kids," Stark explained, eyes still trained on her enemy. "Not even Fury knew and you can bet your ass he's going to be on my ass when he finds out, if he hasn't already."
"Okay, can someone please explain what's going on? Because I'm lost," Barton piped up and, for once, Stephen was grateful. He, too, would seriously like to know as he himself was lost.
"Yes, some explanation would do us all good," Wong agreed as he managed to get to his feet with the help of another sorcerer. Stephen was standing only due to stubbornness and the Cloak of Levitation. Had it not been for his loyal companion, he very well would have been sprawled on the ground still. "Like why there exists a sorcerer powerful enough to not only battle the Mad Titan but also to play around with the Infinity Stones like that while still remaining undetected by the Sorcerers of Kamar-Taj." Then he shot a glance in the direction of the Sorcerer Supreme. "Or how you know Stephen."
"Toni's not really the woman she presents herself to be," Rhodes started, gesturing at said woman. "Genius, billionaire, philanthropist ... That's the image she crafted over the years to hide the fact that she pretty much came out of nowhere."
"More accurately, she shouldn't exist. At all," Danvers cut in, sounding more like herself now that the initial shock wore off. "The real Antonia Stark is dead. Has been since September 1970. She wasn't even born to begin with. She died an infant when her mother was strangled."
"Then who," Rogers asked, pointing at Toni. "Is this?"
"Antonia 'Toni' Stark. Or at least her soul. My original body died a very long time ago, Cap, influenced by this one's," here she actually kicked Thanos in the face with her boot, showing no remorse for it even though he was down and unarmed. Not so surprisingly, no one had complaints or problems with that. "Meddling. The accident," Stephen noticed her grimace and the flinch from Barnes at the word. Well, that was interesting and required further questioning. "Happened about twenty years too early, taking out the entire Stark family with it."
"Then how are you alive?" Romanov questioned, squinting suspiciously at her. "And how would have Thanos influenced anything? This is the first time he came to Earth."
"In this cycle and universe, yes." Both enemies said at the same time before Toni kicked him halfheartedly again to shut him up. He just grunted but wisely stayed quiet. For now, anyway. "And he did it using these," Toni lifted her hand to show them the Infinity Stones dancing around it. "In the last cycle when we were struggling in our usual song and dance. I didn't know the consequences until moments before the birth of this universe and I realized there was no thread of fate that belonged to me. I simply didn't exist. Toni Stark didn't exist. Unknowingly, in an attempt to rid himself of his greatest enemy and to weaken me in possible future cycles, he gave me a blank slate. I had no limitations as to how I can influence this universe. I didn't have to worry about things that might affect my birth or life since I won't have one. Without knowing it, Thanos has created a god." She looked her nemesis in the eyes and smiled at him in a very unpleasant way. "You removed my limits and confinements of flesh and destiny. I could do whatever the hell I wanted and no one would suffer consequences. I've prevented so many deaths and so many tragedies, or have you not noticed how Xandar was abandoned and Knowhere empty?"
"How are you alive? How did you survive me erasing you from existence?" That seemed to be all Thanos wanted to know.
Toni just arched an eyebrow at him. "I am alive because this isn't the first time I've made an artificial body, be it for myself or someone else. And as I remember all of the trillions upon trillions of cycles we've battled through, I knew how to do it. As for why I even exist at all, you can thank the universe or multiverse or whatever thing/power keeps throwing us into these cycles. They weren't happy with the way you tried to resolve our conflict before it even started this time around. They made sure you couldn't." At his continued disbelieving expression, she chuckled - a bit darkly - and walked over to crunch in front of the defeated purple behemoth. "Oh, you poor, unfortunate idiot. You don't even realize, do you."
"Realize what?" He tried to spit at her but he had no way of reaching her. He was pinned down competently and efficiently.
"In our last battle, in the previous cycle, I realized something very important. About you. About me. About the universe. About us." Stark brought her hand with the Infinity Stones right in front of Thanos' face and the Titan flinched away. Toni chuckled. "Unfortunately for the both of us, as well as the universe at large, we are connected, our fates intertwined, along with the fate of the universe itself. If one of us dies, then so will the other two. And that, unfortunately, will lead us into another new cycle. You always thought destruction and death was the answer, so it made sense to the universe to create someone who sought solutions in creation and fixing things. We were meant to balance each other. And I was blind to that for far too long, following your line of reasoning and trying to kill or destroy you. But then I realized that that was folly and in fact that which kept the cycles coming. So I'm not going to kill you, Thanos. As long as we keep raising knives at each other, these cycles will keep repeating and I rather like how I directed this one. It is, after all, the reason why I made myself a physical body." She stood up, looking triumphant the way she hadn't when she had bound him moments ago. "Plenty waits for me, Thanos. The next cycle, when it happens, won't be kind on you."
Unexpectedly, Thanos laughed at that. It was unsettling and Stephen wasn't even ashamed by being uneasy about that. He wasn't the only one. In fact, Toni was the literal one one who wasn't shuddering at the cackling coming from the Mad Titan. "You grow more foolish by the cycle, Stark. You should know by now that there is no prison that can hold me. Neither magical nor technological. We both know you've tried both and neither succeeded."
"That's why, this time," she leaned down at the waist in order to look more menacing with proximity. "I'll be combining the two." When she stood up straight again, she had a very intimidating grin on her face. Stephen wondered how this was the same woman whom had joked and laughed with him, who had taught him so much of what he knew of the mystic arts. Then again, he remembered their argument before the Heart of Iron was stolen - or was it? He was starting to doubt that and that only hurt all the more because it meant Toni could have come back anytime she wanted but had instead chosen to stay away - and how it wasn't her stance or any aggressiveness on her part that had made her scary. It had been a simple look in her eyes even as her face remained blank. So yes, he guessed he could connect the woman who wore old rock band T-shirts to this female formidable warrior that had single-handedly taken down one of the greatest threats Earth had ever faced. "You don't think I've been idle all this time, do you? I've never been the lazy sort. My mind needs stimulation in order for me not to go completely insane. So I planned and theorized and practiced. But, most importantly, I learned all there is to be taught in Kamar-Taj. Hell, you could say Agamotto and I are good buddies." And here Stephen had thought this couldn't get crazier and more impossible. "I've had the help of every Sorcerer Supreme to develop the spell I need, you were so kind to bring me the Infinity Stones and we both know I have no match in technology."
"No," the warlord whispered as he finally realized the error of his ways and the finality of his judgement. "You can't!"
"Oh, but I can," Iron Maiden replied easily, taking on a surer stance as a swarm of nanites exited her suit. "I can and I will. You've had many chances, far, far too many, to go down a different path. You knew I would stand in your way. You knew I won't give up until I find an ending I am satisfied with. You knew that attacking my home and my loved ones will bring out the worst in me. They once called me the Merchant of Death, if you'd care to remember." Toni's eyes flashed and the nanites started covering Thanos from head to toe. He screamed, though it was more in rage, fear and panic rather than pain. Stark ignored him, hands already moving through the air as spells and shields and seals started appearing in the air around her. "Yet you still challenged me. You still pushed. You wouldn't let it go. The universe kept telling you No, this isn't what I want and you kept ignoring that. You brought this on yourself."
"This isn't over, Stark! I am inevitable!" Thanos shouted before the nanites covered him whole, forming a big sphere to be his eternal prison. The spells that had been floating around Stark immediately surged to wrap around or sink into the ball.
Toni made a few more hand gestures before she stopped and let all the spells slowly fall into place. She raised her hand and let the Infinity Stones floating around it sink into her gauntlet like they had been wanting to for the past half an hour or so. "And I," she seemed to take in a deep breath but no pain colored her voice or expression despite the obvious surges of power traveling through her whole body from where the Infinity Stones were trying to seemingly melt into her skin. "Am Iron Maiden." And as she repeated her earlier statement, Toni snapped her fingers and the Infinity Stones shone brightly as a rainbow of colors enveloped the sphere she had made. Thanos screamed all sorts of profanities from the inside but Toni paid no heed. Instead, a wormhole opened under the sphere and it shot right through, disappearing in a second. As soon as the portal closed, the Infinity Stones seem to be ejected from the red gauntlet and Toni gasped for air as though it had be knocked out of her, doubling over as if in spite of herself.
"Toni!" Stephen found himself calling out and launching forward within a single heartbeat, steadying her with shaky hands despite not being completely steady on his own two feet, either. The Infinity Stones were once again dancing all around Toni, poking her and trying to return to her hand. The Cloak shooed them away as though they were flies, but that didn't deter them. In return, that only made his companion all the more adamant to brush them off, which created a pretty comical sight, especially considering that all seven of them were powerful semi-sentient or sentient artifacts, six of which had shaped the universe. And yet all Stephen could focus on was the woman in his arms, who seemed to have liquid blue fire coursing through her veins. "Are you alright?"
The brunette raised her head and leaned it on his shoulder. The sorcerer tried not to shiver at every huff of air that tickled his skin with every breath. "The endgame, Doc. The endgame ... "
"What about the endgame?" Asked the confused former neurosurgeon. He tried not to sound as panicky as he felt. Were they talking about chess or something much, much more he'd rather not contemplate.
Toni just chuckled. "It's over. Checkmate. The king is finally toppled. I can rest now."
Stephen tried to ignore how his heart broke. Right. Toni had said she had a purpose. She'd said that it was her dream to no longer be needed. Considering how long she'd been fighting, she probably deserved the rest. But that didn't mean that Stephen didn't selfishly want her to stay with him. He had been searching for her for so long. He didn't want to go of her. Strange had lost her once and that was even before he could properly get to know her. He ... He didn't want to regret that for the rest of his life, no matter how short or long. But he wouldn't deny her the rest she had so rightfully earned, judging from the sound of things.
So he just carefully slid down to his knees and brought Toni to rest across his lap, leaning against his chest. She made no protests and he wondered if she was ready to face death. He guessed that she was probably like millions of him and his experience with Dormammu, so death was probably nothing new for her. Still, he agreed with the Ancient One. No one is ever ready to face death. And yet ... Toni looked almost ... content. Like this was a long time in coming. He tried not to think about it, instead leaning down to rest his chin on her head, fighting back tears when she nuzzled into his hold.
"It's okay. We're going to be okay." Was that seriously his voice? It sure as hell didn't sound like it. But, then again, he hadn't felt a grief like this in a vary long time. Can you really blame him? He was personally of the opinion that he was holding out pretty well. He doubted anyone else would be taking this so well. Pain was an old friend.
He tried not to think about how nothing had ever hurt this much before.
"You can rest now."
And Toni just closed her eyes with this small, happy smile on her lips, content that her purpose was fulfilled.
And Stephen broke down, holding her tight and not caring about the eyes on him.
He was allowed to grieve.