Eternal Marvels

Issue #1

Time was endless.

Space was endless.

Reality was endless.

Power was endless.

Mind was endless.

Soul was endless.

I'm living inside of eternity and I don't even feel like I need a drink.

He hadn't had a hard drink in some time, for as much as that mattered here, although he had plenty of moments close to lapsing into bad habits. Once you dove deep into the drink, you never truly lost the thirst, no matter how you changed your lifestyle. It didn't matter what kind of protein shake or mediatory Wing-chun classes he took, the drink was always in the back of the throat, waiting to seduce you when life hit hard.

When Rhodey lost his legs. When he lost the kid.

And even though Pepper would disagree, he would admit to himself that it called to him when he lost the courage stay Iron Man for the world.

In those moments where his life was ground down by his failures, the drink was a whisper in the ear and burning embrace in waiting. He never opened the bottle, but he always knew he could.

But in death? Well, he guessed the drink had no sway over the afterlife and if he was ever thirsty...

He kicked out and his armored boot splashed against water that felt only inches deep, but was somehow impossible to see any solid ground beneath. He had already scanned the horizon, finding nothing but distant clouds and oddly atmospheric mood lighting with no apparent source.

"God." His voice shook as he spoke, "If you're here, please tell me this is sanitary."

"You won't be staying long enough to find out."

He'd recognize that teasing, know-it all tone anywhere. He spun around, damaged metal creaking in displeasure from the sudden motion and he almost lost his footing from the imbalances in the armor's foundation. He didn't care.

"Natasha."

She smiled, "Tony."

She was distant, standing relaxed under some architecture that he swore hadn't been there before. It looked vaguely Japanese in style, which raised a whole bunch of questions that he wasn't prepared to answer. Much like nearly falling flat on his face though, Tony didn't quite care at the moment. Natasha was here, wearing an outfit that seemed to blend from one uniform to another whenever he blinked.

Tony swallowed, "You said you'd be back in a minute."

"Time is relative Tony." The way her voice was so clear yet she was so far away wasn't natural, but nothing about this place could be called 'natural'. "From my perspective, it's been a pretty short wait."

Tony looked away, blinking away moisture from his eyes, not wanting to be unable to see her. He turned back and it felt like there was something off with the perspective, even if he could still see her just as clearly as before.

"You made everyone very upset Romonav." He coughed, "We had to handle your share of the bad guys you know."

"I know."

He stepped forward, but didn't feel like he was actually moving, "Decades of spy-craft, fighting off aliens and robots, and you decide that cliff-diving was the way to go?"

Her chuckle echoed through the water, "Glass houses Tony. You always got everything you wanted at the snap of your fingers and that even included saving the universe."

Tony stopped, suddenly finding it hard to breath.

Natasha hadn't moved, but again that perspective seemed to distort the distance between them. It felt like there was a gap between them.

He wanted to keep moving, but the question had to be asked. "Did I do it?"

"Yes," she said and there was emotion to those words. Like she was holding back tears just like he was.

"And it only cost me, right? No one- I didn't-"

She shook her head, "Only you Tony."

He nodded and this time he couldn't hold back the tears. Tony took a shuddering breath, feeling that intrusive pressure on his chest again, and he couldn't even properly wipe his eyes because he was still covered in jagged and scorched metal. He settled for pinching a piece of cloth between two crumpled bits of metal on his suit gloves, dabbing at the tears as best he can.

"Sorry about the waterworks." Tony forced some humor he didn't really feel into his voice, "You'd think Heaven would clear up allergies, but I should have known something was up about it's advertising when that Megachurch wanted me to donate a few yachts for Jesus. No pearly gates either-"

A sharp pain stabbed into his chest, forcing the words to tumble out of his mouth in a gruff, "Hwuh."

The pressure on his breathing had expanded along his entire body, feeling as though anchors were tied to every inch of his body, trying to drag him down.

Do not tell me I am having a heart attack in Heaven!

Another crack of pain reverberated through his rib-cage and he was forced down on one knee.

Oh god, I'm having a heart attack in Heaven.

"A little-" He lost the air to breath for moment. Tony thumped his chest and felt some semblance of relief, "A little help Romonav?"

"I'm sorry Tony. You're too new. Too fresh. I don't know if this is Heaven exactly, but I do know that it's not exactly as closed off as one would expect."

How does that help me right now?

Tony wanted to say as much, but he was now dealing with a new problem; he was sinking. The water that had once held up his full weight was now swallowing up his lowered knee and the hand he placed to keep him stable. It wasn't a sudden dip, but rather a slow submerging, something that he might have taken advantage of had he not been battling a particularly aggressive gravity focused solely on him and suffering a heart attack in Heaven.

"The stones you gathered came from different timelines. Different universes." Natasha went on speaking. Tony forced himself to look up and she was a nearly a blot in the horizon. "There's an... incongruity. Inconsistency. It's hard to put into words that I can understand, but the transition of power isn't as smooth as it was with Thanos and now there's... cracks."

Almost on command the water beneath him - now up to his hip - lit up in a near blinding display of light, thrumming with power that somehow shook Tony's very bones. He was forced to close his from the pain of the brightness, but he couldn't do anything about the sound, the air shaking with a boom that put to mind thunder traveling in slowmotion.

"What do I do?!" He screamed - or tried to. He knew that he at least mouth the words, but he couldn't feel if his lungs were working with him right now or if they had also turned traitor like his heart.

Maddeningly, her voice cut through the slow thunder and seemed to even dim the all-encompassing light, "You don't have to do anything Tony. Your time has come and passed, just like mine. You don't need to work on any scraps anymore. Offer guidance and let others guide you."

"I can-" The water flowed into his mouth and paradoxically, he felt his mouth suddenly dry. He could still breathe, somehow, but it was muffled under the water, pressure, and ratcheting pain.

I can't do nothing.

"Not yet." Tony knew she could hear him, somehow. "There will be some pain-"

No shit!

A chuckle, "It's in your nature to resist and to fight back, to find answers even when you truly want to let go. It made you a great hero, but also the stubborn jerk I've butted heads with more than a few times. Believe me now Tony. The answers have already been found, at least partly, and you have a far harder journey ahead of you than being Iron Man."

It was beyond painful, but he opened the one eye still above water, desperate trying to get one last look at his friend before... before whatever happened, happened.

A child stood in front of him, her hair sloppily chopped short and her clothes covered in dirt. It was the eyes that he recognized. Scared and more than a little lonely, but filled with a keen intelligence behind them.

"It's okay Tony. Things will work out. For now-"

She leaned down and planted a brief kiss on his temple.

"-Rest. Please."

Pepper came to mind, her voice sounding just anguished and just as caring. It was a moment of... not weakness. No, something grander. He didn't think anyone who felt this way could ever describe it as a weakness.

Acceptance, Tony thought and felt the fight go out of him, Yeah, that's the word.

It was in that moment of acceptance that Tony Stark dipped below the surface and into the abyss of light.

It was the beeping that woke him up. He'd heard it more than a few times in his life, often for being a patient or for visiting a friend who was. Rhodey in recovery. Pepper during labor.

His vision was fuzzy at first, but a few practice blinks found cleared that up quick enough. It was clearly a hospital room, painted a bright but lifeless white like pretty much every one in existence. He could see tubes lining the underside of his bed and into his left arm, either an IV drip or some way to give him a medical cocktail. There was an instinctive moment where he wanted to pull out the tubes and wires like they did in movies, but those scenes were always dumb and a quick way to piss off the doctors treating you.

His right hand was so bandaged that he couldn't move the fingers, only giving minor twitches at the best of his experiments. His shift in bed slightly and could feel how there was a slight pressure along his chest and shoulders. Likely more bandages in the way.

Natasha wasn't kidding when she said she wanted me to rest.

Not like he had much choice. He could move his toes at least, but he just felt so exhausted, even from just these little forms of test his movement and awareness.

So much so that he almost didn't notice that he wasn't alone. A woman sat on a nearby chair, legs crossed while she read something interesting on her phone, a black and gold jacket in her lap.

Tony knew it was a bad habit, but the first thing he noted about his mysterious visitor was that she was quite a stunner. Long blond hair that reached past her shoulders, something that many of his old lady-companions claimed was a hassle to keep clean and tidy, but obviously shown to have been given a large amount of care. She wore a sleek black dress that reached halfway down her thighs and showed off a generous figure, and the way the light bounced off the hem made it so that gold highlights glimmered in thin triangles. The visitor was young, somewhere around Wanda's age probably, but there was something about how she held herself that made him think of Natasha.

Maybe it's how well she wears the dress?

Hey, old Tony who doesn't have a beautiful wife and kid, how about you take a back seat for a bit yeah?

With that thought came a landslide of guilt, not just for how he ogled the stranger, but for that family of his. Where were they? This was clearly a hospital and no doubt they would have been keeping on eye on him, waiting for any news of his recovery. Was the girl connected to them somehow?

His mind struggled to connect the lines of thinking. He had no idea how much time had passed since he snapped with the Gauntlet, but if it was only a few days after the battle with Thanos… Yeah, he could see something there now that made a sort of sense. The battle had been massive, other people had likely died in the fighting, and if he had been in a coma for a few days then Pepper was likely running around making sure clean up and aid was going well.

She can rag on me as much as she wants, he smiled at the thought, She's got that same work obsession as me.

In this scenario, the stranger's identity was half-way solved. Probably a secretary or intern from Pepper's retinue or some other big group who made daily check ups while she and Steve tidied up the world they just saved.

It still hurt that his first sight on waking up hadn't been his family and friends at his bedside, but he could save the ribbing for that later down the line. For now, all he wanted to do was call them up and tell them to clear their schedules, because he was going to spend that whole day hugging them out until they were absolutely sick of it. Hell, whoever this lady was could get in on it too, or maybe settle for him buying her a car or two if she was uncomfortable with that.

Tony felt a flutter in his chest, warmth and good feelings mixing in with his cloudy mind. We avenged them.

He opened his mouth to speak up, tell the woman that he was alive and kicking, but what came out was a hoarse whistle that morphed into a hoarse cough. The coughing was painful enough that it made his body ache, and he could feel bruises begin to make themselves known slightly.

Whatever they've got me hooked on isn't enough.

Still, he got her attention. A small smile crossed her face, "Hey you, you're finally awake. Don't hurt yourself okay? Doctors told me it was a bit touch and go a few times."

He nodded and leaned back onto the hospital pillow, wincing as even that movement made him ache. When he spoke it was low and dry, "Water."

She nodded, "No problem. Hang tight okay?"

Tony didn't bother replying or nodding, feeling more winded from uttering one word than he had in twelve years of super heroics. He rested his eyes, drawing on old training to calm his breathing and center himself. Martial arts wasn't magical bullshit like the movies made it out to be, but as a placebo it did wonders for the mind when it came to breathing exercises.

He wasn't sure if he actually drifted to sleep or not, but he felt a hand gently stir at his shoulder, "Mr. Stark? Tony?"

Tony opened his eyes, turning to the woman holding the cup of water out to him, that small smile on her face still. Her eyes were searching, a keen mind cataloguing everything they took in.

Tony could have kicked himself for not recognizing it sooner. It was the woman's eyes and the way she held herself that reminded him of Natasha, calm, collected, and confident in their own skin. Nothing about a dress or her looks. That had been either the drugs, his horndog habits, or some combination that made him miss the obvious.

He reached for the water cup, noting the scars on both of her hands and bare arms now that he was more aware. They were faded, obviously old wounds, but extensive enough that they took him briefly by surprise.

She seemed to notice, "Hazards of my old job. Fifty percent recklessness and fifty percent inevitability if I'm being generous to myself. Sorry if they make you feel uncomfortable."

Ahhh, now it makes even more sense. Body guard.

He gulped down the water, feeling bliss as it softened his throat.

Once he was sure he wouldn't embarrass himself, Tony raised a bandaged right hand, "I think I'll be joining your club soon." Still a bit hoarse. "You got matching t-shirts?"

She chuckled lightly, "Back in the old days sure. Missed your chance by a few years unfortunately."

He let out an exaggerated sigh, "Guess I'll have to settle for the next best thing and stick with the Avengers then. Hey, keep up the good work and I'll put in a good word for ya, yeah? We've got some new blood coming in and who knows, that might be you eventually."

The smile on her face faltered somewhat, "That would be... your team?"

"Hm?"

"The Avengers." She said curiously, "That's your team name?"

"Uh, yeah? If you have a problem with the name, it's your turn to be a few years behind the curve. And FYI, I didn't name the team, that would have to be the Men In Black knockoffs who got me on board. I just perfected it."

"Uh huh." She crossed her arms, suddenly looking a lot more focused. Tony suddenly felt that the connection he'd drawn to Natasha was closer than he expected with how much this lady zeroed in on him.

Speaking of.

"I'm sorry, where are my manners." He stuck out a pinkie with the hand holding the paper cup, "Tony Stark. Billionaire, genius, married, philanthropist. Also does some minor superhero stuff if you couldn't tell, no biggie."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, but wrapped his pinkie with her own, "Victoria Dallon. Scholar and retired hero."

Victoria shook the appendage and that got a chuckle out of him, "Retired huh? Living the dream at what? 24? No, wait, 22? I'm sorry, I'm terrible with ages. Still, now I'm curious as to where Pepper found you. You one of those guys running around in Hell's Kitchen awhile back?"

She released the hold and went back to crossing her arms, still looking at him curiously. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

It was Tony's turn to give her a searching look, "Am I... supposed to? Oh, damn it, Pepper introduced you to me once didn't she? Look, I swear, if it was at that meet and greet in Jaimaica I'm normally not that distracted, but my kid ate a bad cheeseburger and it was the first time she seriously got sick so I was kind of panicking and buying out the nearest hospital just in case."

Victoria was silent for a moment, "Let me take your cup for you."

"Oh thank-"

The cup was lifted into the air, wobbling just slightly as it floated over to a nearby table stand, crossing by a still cross-armed Victoria.

"-you. Huh." He met Victoria's eyes, "Neat trick. Not as flashy as Wanda's, but at least you don't need to use jazz hands to get the job done."

Victoria blinked, "Mr. Stark, where is your team situated?"

"Where- Is this one of those memory test things? Upstate New York in Manhatten, before Thanos uprooted it with missiles if you haven't seen the pictures that are no doubt circulating online. Are you going to ask me who the President is next, because I just want to warn you, I don't follow politics."

"No, it's not a memory test." Victoria frowned. "At least, I didn't intend it to be. Now I'm not so sure. What's the last thing you remember?"

Having a short conversation with an old friend in Heaven. Not as nice as it looks.

"Fighting Thanos in New York, snapping my fingers, and... passing out. I thought I died, but I guess you're all stuck with me for a bit longer."

"In mid-air?"

He shook his head, "Nope. Grounded. Made a badass speech and everything."

Her fingers were tapping her bare arm, "You're sure about that?"

"I think I'd remember my final stand pretty well, yeah. Look, do any of these questions have an endpoint or..?"

Victoria sighed, "You crashed through the roof of my apartment building and crushed my couch."

"I did what?"

"Exactly what I said. I come home, get ready to make dinner, and then you crash through my roof. Luckily I was on the top floor and didn't have my friend over, or else someone might have gotten hurt. Did as much first aid as I could, called the Wardens, and got you here as fast as I could. That was about two days ago. I've visited a few times, hoping you were okay and wanting to get some answers."

"Two days? Wait, Wardens? Like, Prison Wardens?" He suddenly felt very naked without his armor, his hands gripping the hospital blanket tightly. "If you're keeping me here without my guys knowing, trust me when I say it's not going to last long. What hospital is this?"

"You're in the Warden's Bunker, the medical wing to be exact." Victoria sighed again, pinching the bridge of her nose, "But you don't know who they are, do you?"

"What, like how I was supposed to know who you were? Kid, it feels like your dancing around the subject and its definitely kind of freaking me out, which isn't the best bedside manner."

Victoria winced, "Fair enough. Mr. Stark, I'll be honest. I've never heard of you or your team, especially one situated in old New York, if that's what you meant. If you meant the York span of the City, then I definitely haven't heard of any Avengers or someone named Thanos. And considering the rebuilding going on, that kind of action would definitely have caught some attention. The only reason I knew your name was because the EMT's found your wallet. I've been told that the few numbers you have on some cards, including one for a Stark Industries, don't exist."

Tony blinked, feeling far more sluggish than usual, "That... that can't be right. It doesn't make any sense."

"A lot of things you've mentioned do make sense, sort of, but I get the feeling that you might not like the answer."

He wanted to bark out a laugh, but the sinking feeling in his gut and his sore throat made it come out like a half-sob-half-cough. "Kid, I don't like the answers I've been getting now. How could it get any worse?"

Victoria bit her lip, "Mr. Stark what do you know about the multiverse?"