"If no course of action is taken, then, you have three months to live."

Mary screamed.

Tony spent the next two weeks uncomfortably cooped up in the hospital, confined to his bed. It was infuriating: the same four walls painted a plain white; neverending beeping sounds everywhere; constant nurses, doctors, and visitors streaming in and out of his room; needles poking and prodding him every hour of the day; and of course, not having anything to do.

His way of dealing with the maddening boredom was to play games with his visitors (Peter was always willing to play Go Fish or I Spy with his uncle), watch the news or anything on TV (the first three days on the news channel had been covering the crash but it died down quickly. Afterwards he found a new British show where the main character looked exactly like John, but the doctor refused to confirm nor deny the coincidence to be true) talk to himself, or doodle little plans for different projects on small pieces of paper he was given every so often.

Other times, Mary would come alone and she and Tony would spend long hours talking about his future. Mary wanted him to get the transplant but Tony refused. He refused because, well, he had struggled with major depression ever since he was a child and had tried to take his own life many times. Now, he was offered an easy way out, one that didn't involve much pain. So then, what was the point? Mary didn't see it that way. After the third argument on the topic occurred in front of little Peter, Mary dropped the subject.

"Uncle Tony!" Peter had yelled on his first visit. A week of not seeing his uncle had been way too long.

"Peter!" Tony yelled back, matching the eight-year-old's energy as he scooped Peter into his arms, careful not to injure himself further.

Peter smiled up at him, poking at his 'mouth mullet' as his nephew had named it. "It's spiky." Peter giggled.

Tony laughed. "Yeah, it is spiky, isn't it?"

Peter then moved his hand to Tony's chest, right above the spot the arc reactor was embedded.

"Does it hurt?" Peter asked, his eyes wide with a childish innocence.

Tony's face fell, but he quickly pushed a small smile back on his face. "Not really. Not anymore, at least."

Peter frowned slightly. "Mamma said that you got a big owie and it hurts you sometimes. She also said that you might die. Are you gonna die, Tio?" Peter asked, small tears forming at the corner of his eyes.

Tony grimaced. He could either brush it off and forget about it, but he knew Peter would pester him until he got an answer. Or he could just tell Peter a portion of the truth.

"Yeah, Zio got a big ouchie but it's all better now. See?" Tony took Peter's small hand in his own and pressed it against the reactor, smiling softly despite the spike of pain the action sent through his body.

"You're going to be okay?"

Tony let a long breath. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm okay. I might have to go away in a few months, but I'll visit, okay?"

Peter gave a firm nod making Tony grin. "Okay."

In an instant, Peter's sullen mood morphed into his usual energetic and curious self as he started squirming. "Tony! Tony, lemme go!"

Tony laughed, letting Peter's hand out of his grasp and watched the young boy wriggle off Tony's hospital bed and grab his backpack. "I got a new action figure!"

When the day finally came for Tony to be released, he planned to go straight to his own room and take a nice warm shower with a plastic bag over his stupid cast. Before he could, however, Steve insisted that Tony have someone stay with him for the foreseeable future. Tony only agreed after being threatened by Mary but stubbornly refused to let anyone except his sister watch over him.

At his demands, Steve had just sighed and said, "fine. Do whatever you want as long as you have someone there."

Mary moved in a day later, Peter following close behind with his War Machine mask and Captain America themed backpack.

Tony helped them move all their boxes inside, despite Mary's constant protests and reminders that Tony had a broken leg and shouldn't be walking around as much as he was. As always, Tony ignored his little sister, but eventually did sit down with Peter and spent the rest of the day watching movies, drinking hot chocolate, and playing games with his family.

When night fell and Peter and Mary fell asleep, Tony found that he couldn't follow suit. He ended up sneaking into his lab and getting JARVIS to do a full body scan. JARVIS complied but the results were not something Tony wanted to hear. His rector was no longer working.

Functioning, yes. Keeping shrapnel at bay, yes. Keeping his body alive, keeping the toxins in his body from killing him, no. Instead, the reactor was slowly failing, the toxins eating at the metal ring embedded in his chest. It felt almost like the whole palladium dilemma and Tony couldn't help but laugh sorrowfully. He wanted to live, but he would forever refuse the heart transplant (other people needed better hearts more than him, anyways, and he wasn't about to indirectly kill somebody for upping the survival rate of his meaningless life) and he was going to die already, no matter what happened. So what was the point? He still has that desire to live, which brought him to his lab under the cover of darkness, building, planning, and designing more of his chest pieces created to sustain his life.

None of them worked. The third try stopped the toxins at least, (you know what they say- third time's the charm) but nothing else. So he kept pushing. Kept building, kept creating, but nothing worked. It drove him insane.

Everything he built had worked in the past- why wasn't this working too?

He gave up after the fourth try. Sitting in his dentist chair, shirtless, his arc glowing a faint blue, the holograms of his body showing nothing different than the last three tries. "JARVIS," he had asked, his voice quiet. "It's not working. Nothing is working. Why isn't it working?"

"I'm sorry, sir. You tried your hardest. I'm afraid that now, nothing short of a miracle could save you now. One 'miracle' I have in mind is listening to Dr. Watson and taking his suggested course of action." JARVIS replied, almost sullenly. But AI's didn't have emotions. Everyone knew that.

Tony sat in his chair, silent. He didn't even have the energy to reprimand his AI's sass. "What about… magic?" he finally asked hesitantly.

"I-... sir, magic is not real."

Tony huffed. Then he'd make it real.

That decision sent him on a wild goose chase of magic-hunting. The internet didn't give much- even JARVIS didn't pick up on anything weird. So Tony turned to friends and family. First, he cornered Mary, but she knew nothing except the Harry Potter books, but those were fantasy. Nothing useful in that. Next came Rhodey and an awkward text conversation.

Tony S: hey, rhodey, u know anything about magic? Like… anything suspicious going on in a. 51 i should know about? Anything SHEILDs hiding from us?

James R: Uh… no?

James R: I can ask Thor?

Tony S: dang, i thought you'd have aliens at least

James R: Thor is an alien. Asguardian God, remember?

Tony S: oooohhh right

James R: Thor says he'll call you.

Tony S: aight thanks honeybear 3

James R: np… i think

The conversation then led to an interesting but otherwise unhelpful conversation with the God of Thunder. JARVIS detected an incoming call and Tony answered, putting it on the big screen. Thor's excited face popped up.

"Friend Stark!" He bellowed.

"Heyy, Thor! Nice to see you." Tony winced.

"It is nice to see you as well, though i hope you are not actually inside this tiny.. screen, are you?" Thor's giant eyebrows furrowed.

"No, no, I'm at home." THor looked relieved.

"Wonderful! Friend Colonel James Rhodes said that you had questions. Correct?"

"Um. yeah. How much do you know about magic?"

Thor frowned. "Well, my brother is a magic user and is quite gifted at it."

"Alright. And what kind of magic does he mainly use?"

"He's very elegant in illusions and transfigurations. With the Tesseract he can perform mind control. That is the extent of his powers, however." Thor explained, a gleam in his eyes as if he were retelling a fond memory.

"Hmm. Okay. And can he do anything that might… I don't know… save someone from death?" Tony asked, eyes narrowed.

Thor shook his head sadly. "Nay. He can heal most flesh wounds, but nothing more. I apologize, friend Stark, that I could not provide more details."

"Hey, hey, it's okay point break. Thanks for everything."

"Anything for my comrades in arms." Thor grinned.

"No, I, we're not-" Tony sighed. It was useless trying to explain things to the Asgardian. "Goodbye, Thor. Thanks again."

The last thing Tony saw before ending the call was Thors beaming face. Unsuccessful. Magic was not an option. Too bad that was his last resort.

Tony sat down, head in his hands. A feeling of hopelessness settled deep inside his chest. He was going to die. Nothing was working, nothing had been working, nothing would work. He doubted the transplant would prove successful, but even if it were, he had already put his foot down. No transplant. No surgery.

He finally had to admit it to himself, no matter how hard he wanted to forget. Tony Stark was going to die.

After his hell-bound revelation, Tony found himself sneaking into his lab more and more often. Three nights a week turned to every night, then parts of the day. His lab kept him sane, kept him focused on his work instead of his supposed death date looming over him. The date that had even circled on his calendar with bright red ink. Yes, he knew there was a chance he would survive longer or die earlier, but nothing mattered at this point. Nothing counted. He was going to die anyways so what was one more dot on the calendar?

September thirteenth

That was the day Tony Stark was going to die.

Days of locking himself in his lab turned into weeks. He refused to leave for days on end and when he finally did leave, it was in the dead of night when no one was awake and he could be alone. Mary was concerned, obviously, but her worry only grew when the weeks turned to months.

Two months passed without much trouble aside from Mary constantly pounding on Tony's door, pleading with JARVIS and Tony alike to open the door or let her talk with her brother. He and Peter were her only family ever since her husband and her best friend, May, had died and she couldn't lose Tony, not while Peter was still a child, still scarred from the death of his father.

However much Mary didn't want to lose her brother, she knew it was going to happen someday. She knew she couldn't stop it, but she had tried so hard to convince her brother to take one of the courses of action Dr. Watson had mentioned. Tony repeatedly refused and Mary eventually gave up, bitter and snappy towards her brother. Now, with one month left in his shirt life, Mary began to regret how she treated Tony after he refused treatment. She realized that maybe she was part of the reason Tony hid himself, but she wasn't sure.

She was sure, however, that she wanted Tony to come out and play with her like they used to when they were children back in Italy. She wanted to have movie nights with her family, go on walks with Peter and Tony. But Tony refused. He always refused.

It was August twentieth when Mary passed Tony's room, the door closed and locked, like usual. Mary wanted to help, she really did, but she didn't know how to. Sighing, she walked up to the door and raised a fist to knock when an idea popped into his gear.

A grin made its way onto her face and she turned away. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Hey, JARVIS, what's Steve Rodgers' phone number?"

Tony sighed, setting down a wrench and rubbing his eyes. Wincing in pain, he realized he hadn't slept in three days. Not that that mattered anyways.

Dr. John Watson had later filled him in on what to expect for the next few months, explaining that if he chose to live out his life with no treatment, the pain would only grow worse as his heart slowly failed him. John had told him that while the reactor may help, it would only continue keeping the shrapnel away from his heart and not the substantial damage he'd received from ruining his body. Without proper treatment, the only thing they could do was prescribe him some over-the-counter painkillers and send him along on his way.

It had been hard to swallow, but Tony just said "okay" and left with a bit more instructions and his medicine. The medicine had to be refilled every five days, but Tony had started taking larger doses as the pain grew worse each day: they could only do so much.

And it really did hurt. It occasionally hurt to move, it hurt to take deep breaths. It wasn't too bad, every few hours he'd take a strong dose of pain-killers and that would usually ease the pain. For a few hours, at least.

Mary would constantly come knocking on his door, asking if he was okay and begging to talk to him. Tony would refuse, then lie and say he was fine. He just wanted to be left alone.

For the most part, Mary tended to respect him, but he could tell she was worried and wouldn't be quitting anytime soon.

He didn't know how worried his sister was until, a day after her last 'check-in' she knocked again and the annoying voice of Steven Grant Rodgers flooded the room, although slightly muffled.

Tony sighed, turning away from the door. Dejectedly, he called out in a flat voice, "Go away, Steve. I don't want to talk to you."

"Tony-"

"Please just leave, Captain."

Silence. Tony could almost see Steve on the other side of the door, his fist raised to knock, eyes filled with too many emotions: regret, sadness, fear..

Tony shook his head to clear the image and continued to tinker with a little star-wars themed robot he was building Peter as a Christmas gift he would instruct Mary to give after he, well, died. Tightrope from The Greatest Showman played in his head and he huffed.

Tony heard Steve's footsteps fade and his shoulders sagged in relief. He really didn't want to talk to anyone, much less Steve Rodgers.

Someone else knocked on the door and Tony set the small robot down on his workbench, rubbing a hand over his face. "I already told you, Steve, I don't want to talk to you! Just leave me alone, already!"

"It's not Steve. Tones, can I come in?" Colonel James Rhodes asked in a soft voice.

Tony stood there in silence. He didn't want to talk, but this was his best friend. He deserved a chance. Exhaling slowly, he lowered his gaze. "JARVIS, unlock the door for honeybear but keep everyone else out." JARVIS didn't respond, but the garage door leading to the house opened with a click and in stepped the dark-skinned man.

Tony froze when his friend walked into the room, only looking up when Rhodey put his hand on Tony's shoulder. "Hey, Tones, can you look at me?" Tony nodded slightly and looked up, meeting the colonel's gaze. He could see himself reflected in Rhodey's dark brown eyes. Unshaven, disheveled hair, dark bags under his eyes from not sleeping in days. To top it off, small lines were etched into his face from constantly grimacing or frowning in pain.

Rhodey, who had apparently been studying him as well, opened his mouth in a silent gasp. "Oh, Tony... why?"

Tony leaned towards Rhodey, resting his head on the dark man's shoulder as he began to cry. "Rhodey, I'm dying. I don't want to go," he took a shuddering breath. "I tried everything but nothing's working. I don't know anything anymore except that I have four weeks to live."