"That's a one way trip."

He knew that, it wasn't hard for his mind to know that his armor wasn't built for what he was about to put it through.

Stark tower got uncomfortably close to him as the chest plate of the MK VII slammed against the building.

He held his breath, hoping the nuke wouldn't go off. He scanned the thing while he was attached.

Hammer tech, go figure.

The roar of the repulsors grew in his ears. Pushing him faster and harder than he had ever previously gone. Bolts of blue plasma flew by as Chitauri tried to shoot him down.

He grinned, there was no way they would ever catch him. Not now, not ever.

He simply kept his gaze forward, staring into the abyss above him. Where his own tech was used against him along with the tesseract to open a wormhole. And they did it in his god-damned home! That was never gonna fly.

The roar of the missile and his thrusters cut out as he went through.

It was almost surreal as he passed through the hole in space time. Like jumping into water and breaking the surface tension. But instead there was absolutely nothing on the other side. No air, nothing.

He lifted his arms away from the missile, watching the nuke fly through the vacuum of space. A lone white dot amongst the thousands of alien warships surrounding him.

He simply floated there as his armor slowly shut down. Eyes staring through the transparent aluminum lenses. The only way he could watch in the black void.

He had a feeling that he could very well die here. If the portal didn't pull him back to Earth, then he would suffocate in space. His lifeless body drifting forever through the void. A sarcophagus of red and gold.

A blinding flash drew him to the central space station of the alien armada. A ball of nuclear fire ungulfing it as the bomb made contact. Ripping it apart into tiny pieces and causing secondary explosions that incinerated everything around it.

Then the Chitauri all around started to drop, like a puppet with their strings cut.

At that, he knew that they'd finally won.

The alien invasion had been stopped at the source. The big bad guy was probably being rounded up by the rest of the Avengers. Shield would probably take any alien tech and Stark Industries, along with the government would help clean up New York.

Those were the last thoughts of the Teenage, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist as his heart finally stopped beating. Only the soft hum of his V2 Arc Reactor to calm him inside his metal tomb.

His body slowly spun around in the zero g environment. Seeing the portal slowly close in front of him. The only way back to Earth was cut off from him.

He exhaled the last breath he would ever take, thoughts of his only friends filling his thoughts as his mind drifted off. It was an oddly peaceful end, staring at the stars and dazzling wreckage of millions of Chitauri. A smile adorned his face as he entered oblivion.

And so he would stay there, a small chunk of red and gold Titanium A2 alloy. Mixed in with billions of tons of xenometal. An insignificant spec to any cosmic dweller who may find this place.A gasp awoke him from what he thought was the end. He assumed it would've been the end. That was what one would think when they died floating in space.

Tony's eyes flew around in a panicked state as rapid shallow breaths began to fog up the inside of his faceplate. His mind ran at a million miles an hour as he quickly came to two very important conclusions.

One, he was currently alive. Which should be, by all means impossible. At least with current technology. But who knows, there had been some weird Asgardian bullshit he'd seen so far. Maybe magic was real? Nah, that couldn't be. He was a man of science.

But he would have to dwell on that little problem later, as a far more pressing issue took major precedent over it.

He was falling!

And it was very fast if the rushing winds going past his helmet was any indicator of his current surroundings.

Deep red clouds flew past him, coalescing into a deep red sky that filled his vision.

Well, he was wearing his suit. That was always a plus, no matter how many times Rhodey Bear tried to deny it. He loved his goddamn suit, and no one would ever take them from him.

Only problem, his suit was completely shut down.

Shit.

He sent out a mental command through his neural interface. Immediately his Arc Reactor began to spin up. The primordial core being the basis for the heavy fusion of hydrogen isotopes. A bright blue flash erupted from his chest as the spooled up core sent an emergency signal to the MK VII to spool up its own reactor.

A loud hum that synchronized with the core in his chest filled the immediate area before dimming down. His HUD then started to come to life as the clouds stopped going by him. Now only being open sky he was falling through.

Warning

Connection to Stark servers severed

Restarting in manual mode

Of shit, that couldn't be good.

Well, he was Tony goddamn Stark. He could use his suit in manual mode. So what if he now had to use mental commands and gestures to do absolutely everything that JARVIS normally did. Piece of cake.

His suit completely powered up and he felt the load of moving his body lighten to almost nothing as the exoskeleton took over the effort of doing things.

Tony shot his arm forward and fired a quick repulsors from his hand, flipping him down. Before then firing the other thrusters at full power to counter his speed.

Unfortunately a skyscraper made out of very shoddy looking materials got to him.

Acceleration was a bitch.

He slammed his chest into the top of the skyscraper, sending him flying to the side with a loud crash and sending chunks of metal flying down.

He fired his repulsors once more to try to regain control of his descent. But still figuring out how to control the suit's flight by himself made that difficult.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" He yelled as his back slammed into a lower building. Knocking the air out of his lungs. Sliding along the floor of the building on his back. His eyes widening as he saw the other side of the building come into view.

He slammed his hand into the floor, but with the added strain the floor gave way. He then got sent through another window and fell further. His body was in continually growing pain that was making it hard to focus on righting himself.

He bit his lip as a wave of pain coursed through his body. Hell, it felt like every single nerve in his body was on fire.

But his fall came to an abrupt stop as he slammed into the hard ground finally. On his face.

His HUD flickered for a moment before turning back to it's minimal settings. Tony slowly opened his eyes as his battered body had more pain rush through it.

His HUD flared red as the pain moved through him. Pulling up a scan of his current condition with his entire body being highlighted in a deep red. But the young man ignored that as he struggled to flip himself over. The whine of his exoskeleton audible as the battered armor flipped him over onto his back.

"Open…helmet." He struggled to say through the sheer agony he felt. God, it seemed the pain was only worsening as he laid there. His suit became cramped slightly as it felt like his body itself shifted.

His helmet plates opened for him to quickly yank it off his head. The piece of metal slamming against a wall near him before coming to a rest.

Tony grabbed the side of his head as his body spasmed again in the worst pain he'd ever felt. Loud alarms across the MK VII blaring about his medical condition. He let out a bloodcurdling scream into the deep red sky as his eyes themselves seemed to burn.

He slammed his head back into the wall as the pressure he was using on his own armor made his head hurt. With more screams escaping his throat as the pain continued to flood through him.

It felt like an eternity, as it felt like the entirety of his body began to change. He didn't know why, but he could tell something was different. The feeling of his hands inside his gauntlets, the familiar feeling of flesh on graphene and Titanium was gone. The wiggling of his toes inside his heavy boots was like raindrops of steel on metal.

His body spasmed as whatever came over him finally stopped. Leaving him with shallow breaths. His heart beating heavily in his chest and the loud hum of the dual reactors the only sound in his mind.

He stared up at the sky, the deep red sky that he just fallen through.

Wait, what?

He finally had time to ponder that ooh so interesting problem one. Now that problem two had come to a very abrupt and painful conclusion.

He simply laid his metal clad body flat against the ground. Letting himself finally rest, he felt tired. But he couldn't fall asleep, not yet. He still had work to do. A few long nights never stopped him before.

A shimmer of something in the corner of his vision drew his attention. Tony lazily rolled his head to the side. It was a clearly broken mirror, with a large crack running through it.

He gasped at what he saw. Instead of his handsome 19 year old face that the ladies just couldn't get enough of. What stared back was a silvery face with deep black hair. But the part that drew his attention the most was the glowing blue eyes. The same shade as his Arc Reactor.

"Open!" He yelled out to his suit. Plates of metal sliding and folding away as the front of his armor opened. He immediately bolted upright in a panic, all traces of his previous tiredness leaving him as he stared down at himself.

He still was in the black shirt and jeans that he'd worn when he was in New York. But his skin wasn't flesh, instead it was a weird silvery metal that faded to black the closer it got to his extremities. Blue lines of energy racing throughout his body, all of which lead back to his Reactor. Now glowing a more unstable blue.

His mind was full of hundreds of different thoughts as he simply stared at his body. His hands made a sound of metal on metal as they shook in front of him. Circles of light emitting from the palms in a sick copy of his armor.

"What the fuck happened to me!" He yelled out in confusion, anger and sadness. Tears falling from his eyes. Biological metal flexing as an inner skeleton moved armored plates around.

He let his body fall backwards into his opened armor. Tears continued to fall from his eyes in slow streams. Onyx fibers of metal where his hair was stuck to the sides of his face.

It was only then that the red clouds above him began to clear up. He simply stared up as the tears slowly stopped. Watching as a source of strange light filtered through the clouds.

His eyes got brighter as they widened in surprise at what he thought was a star, or hopefully the sun.

But those hopes were quickly crushed as what shone down towards the ground was none other than a massive red pentagram in the sky. Burning angrily as he stared at it.

He sat frozen there in that alley for who knows how long. His silence slowly turned into fits of laughter. Crazed laughter as a far fetched, delusional, crazy idea formed in his head.

Hey, it seemed crazy to think that he died and was now in hell. Like all those overly religious people said would happen to him. And the one preacher's daughter he had a wonderful night with a year ago. Damn blondes looked so sexy.

But when he added up the facts presented to him. Which there were a lot of. And he ruled out the possibility that this was a dream with a painful punch to the side of his face. And found the idea that this was some sort of simulation a ridiculous idea.

But Hell, really? Was that where he was? He'd certainly done a lot of bad things to end up here. Like making bombs for dear old dad at the age of 12. Designing his own weapons that changed the face of conflicts at 14. Graduating with over a half dozen degrees at 17. Before then using those same degrees to make more people die.

But then he had his eyes opened when he went to Afghanistan. His 18th birthday was not surrounded by his few friends and family. But dark rock, terrorists, stolen weapons and a doctor with a heart and brain bigger than most.

Yensin was the only thing that made that cave bearable. As well as a key factor in his escape. He would always remember that man.

From then to 19 and a half years old he was the Invincible Ironman. A superhero that saved the day, stopped the bad guys, fought the battle. That kind of shit. And he honestly felt good doing it, something about helping people not through the writing of checks was good.

But it seemed that the universe didn't think the good outweighed the bad.

What kind of shitty coin toss was this?