"I am... inevitable."

"And I... am... Iron Man."

A mere second ago the power of the stones coursing through his body was an inferno that put all his nerve endings on fire, but as soon as he snapped his fingers, the pain was gone. Tony just felt terribly, overwhelmingly tired. His body was heavier than a ton of bricks, his muscles were like jelly and he was unable to stay upright. He needed to sit down, to just rest for a moment... He collapsed against a piece of wreckage with all the grace of a newborn as all his strength left him.

Even turning his head was too much effort, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peter. The kid was talking, but Tony couldn't concentrate on his words. He just sat there quietly and marveled at the sight of Peter in the Iron Spider Armor he'd created for him, alive and hale. His boy was alright, he survived. Nothing else mattered.

Pepper's face appeared in his field of vision and Tony's eyes focused on her for a brief moment. All he could think of was how beautiful his wife was and how right it felt that her face should be the last thing he would ever—

Someone grabbed his arm and shook hard.

"Don't sleep, Daddy!"

Tony jerked awake, the image of the battlefield melting into the familiar shapes of his lake house around him. He was seated on the sofa in his living room, dressed in the comfortable (but still classy) clothes he liked to wear at home. Cheerful music was playing, he recognized the lazy tune of Jingle Bell Rock. The air smelled of gingerbread and chocolate, he could hear snippets of quiet conversation somewhere nearby. Thanos was nowhere in sight.

Groggy and disoriented, Tony looked up to see his little daughter staring at him with a dissatisfied frown on her face.

"You're supposed to sample our cookies," Morgan said, sounding just as strict as Pepper usually did when she berated him about something he'd messed up. "Don't slack off."

She wore an apron with the picture of Iron Man on the front, but despite that, she had somehow managed to smear flour and other unidentifiable baking ingredients all over her clothes, face, and even hair.

Tony shook his head to make sense of his surroundings, but thankfully the initial confusion was already passing.

He had fallen asleep on the sofa.

A dream. It had been just a dream.

No, his brain supplied, a flashback.

The battle had been real. But it'd happened months ago.

They had won.

Thanos was dead - and Tony was not.

Sure, he'd had to spend what felt like at least a thousand years in a hospital, but now he was finally back home, right in time for the Christmas holidays. Although the Wakandan doctors weren't particularly happy about it. He suspected that, given the chance, they would have never parted with their favorite guinea pig.

"Sorry, Maguna," Tony sheepishly accepted the plate with cookies with his left hand. His right one was still unresponsive, although now, after extensive therapy, he could at least feel it a little when someone touched him. The doctors were optimistic that he should be able to regain at least partial use of the hand with time, but for the foreseeable future, he would have to function as a leftie.

"I made these and Nate made the brown ones," Morgan explained, pointing at the different cookies on the plate. They were slightly misshapen, and one of them looked a bit burned.

Tony dutifully took one of the cookies made by his daughter and munched on it.

"Mmm…" he made a thoughtful face and then grinned. "The best cookie ever!"

"You must test Nate's too," Morgan insisted and pushed some brown cookies his way.

He was glad to see her with children her own age. Thanks to the Snap, she and the youngest Barton offspring were now peers, and although they've only met a few times after the Blip, they quickly became friends.

"Tired?" Pepper materialized next to Tony, a mug of hot chocolate in her hand and a concerned expression on her face.

"No," Tony lied. When she subjected him to her patented 'I-recognize-your-bullshit' stare, he admitted, "Maybe a little."

His opinion was that he'd slept enough while he was in a coma, but his body had other ideas and made him fall asleep at the most inconvenient times. The constant tiredness was super annoying.

"I have it on good authority that you have time for a quick nap," Pepper smiled. "Happy just called, it'll take them at least an hour to get here."

"What about you two? No need for some extra beauty sleep?" Tony used his good hand to pull Pepper down beside him on the sofa and leaned conspiratorially towards her belly. "Mummy works too much, she should rest more. With daddy."

They hadn't known Pepper was pregnant when Tony had embarked on the time heist. Both of them had believed her to be too old to conceive naturally. But she did, and soon Tony and Pepper were going to welcome a new baby into the family. Too impatient to wait for birth to learn the gender of his new offspring, Tony already knew they were expecting a boy this time. When he imagined how close he came that day to losing it all - just a little less luck and he would have never met his son...

"Is this a proposition, Mr. Stark?" Pepper purred, leaning into his embrace and canceling any negative thoughts going through his head. "We have guests in the house."

"I want to nap with Daddy too!" Morgan immediately climbed into Tony's lap, effectively eliminating the possibility of any amorous shenanigans taking place under her watchful eye.

"Family nap it is," Tony announced with a wide grin. "But first - family cuddle!"

Morgan squealed and Pepper laughed when he squished them all together into one big happy heap. With his wife and daughter in his arms, Tony couldn't think of a more perfect place to be. What has he ever done to deserve this?