Bruce was not the biggest fan of the iron man suit. Not that he had anything bad to say about it. It was a fine piece of machinery after all. Completely ahead of its time. However, that didn't mean that he liked to be inside of it. Looking at it from the outside was all well and good but when the suit was riding up into unmentionable areas he really did not like it. Especially considering those areas were...unguarded at the moment.
The cold metal against his privates was not pleasant at all.
See, instead of carrying him like Bruce thought Tony was going to do, Tony instead reached over to Bruce and clamped down on his shoulder. What followed could have been a scene from a horror movie as what felt like a million ants crawled over his body. Only for those ants to completely encase him in a replica of Tony's suit.
According to him he always carried enough nano-bots for nearly 3 suits so that they could repair any broken areas. So it was enough for both of them to have a suit. But that did mean that it was a very slim fit. There wasn't an awful lot of room inside. Not like when he last used one of Tony's suits.
If Bruce thought too hard about it he would get pretty claustrophobic. It almost made him prefer that Tony had carried him bridal style over the streets of New York. Almost being the operative word. The idea of being thousands of feet in the air with only a shirt to cover him was enough to shut him up.
However, Bruce also wasn't too confident in flying the suit himself. While he had operated the Hulk-buster suit before, he didn't really do much flying in that one. In the end Tony had FRIDAY set it to autopilot so that it would just follow wherever Tony went.
Bruce could not believe that any of this was happening. One second they were working on the machine and the next they had hurtled through time and landed themselves in some alternate 2012.
The machine hadn't even been completed yet. It was nowhere near done. It should not have been able to start let alone send them somewhere. And they definitely shouldn't have been able to get here unscathed. Neither of them had any protective gear on. They should have disintegrated in the quantum realm.
Yeah he had the Hulk to protect him but even that shouldn't have been enough.
Speaking of the Hulk, Bruce had started to panic when he looked down and saw his very human hand. His skin was a shade of pink he hadn't seen in half a decade. He hadn't felt so small, so vulnerable in so many years. It was disconcerting and left him feeling incredibly anxious and uneasy. If Tony wasn't there he probably would have had a breakdown by now.
If he hadn't been able to detect the Hulk at all then he definitely would have been having a panic attack the likes he had never experienced before. However, fortunately, he could still feel his protective presence at the back of his mind. The only downside was that he felt more separate again. More like they were before the two of them merged together.
Hey Hulk are you okay? He thought.
It took a few seconds before he heard a reply. Hulk okay Banner. But Hulk confused why we're apart again.
I know, me too buddy. But we'll figure this out.
Hulk here if Banner needs me.
Bruce was touched by the Hulk's words. There had been so many years when they had not seen eye to eye. When he even outwardly hated the other guy. It took a while for them both to realise that they cared about the other.
Thanks big guy.
"Right we're coming up on my tower. The bots have enough cloaking capabilities that no one should be able to detect us" Tony's voice came from the speakers within his suit.
The owner of the voice in question was actually about 30ft in front gliding over the bustling streets of New York. Even in the middle of the night the city never really stopped. When Bruce had first set sight on the amount of people just going about their lives below him, he had nearly teared up. There were just so many. So many that would be caught up in Thanos's destruction in just over a decade.
Tony had paused too. Only for a moment, probably to soak it all in like Bruce was doing. But he shook himself out of it pretty quickly and continued on his flight path.
Bruce could just make out the outline of Stark Tower in the distance. It wasn't lit up as brightly as the other buildings due to it not being complete yet but there was no mistaking that shape. It even still had the whole 'Stark' logo across the top. Which was something Bruce had only really seen in photos. It had already been mostly destroyed by the time he saw it.
Though he actually preferred it when it was simply an 'A'. Having your name in bright lights was definitely not Bruce's thing.
"How are we getting in?" Bruce said "I assume we can't just waltz in the front door."
"I think we can probably get away with landing on the roof and slipping in through the service stairway at the back." Tony mused. "As far as I can remember, I don't think we set-up all of the security to the building yet. Only the lower 10 floors were fully functioning."
"I'm following your lead Tony. Literally. I can't control where this thing moves." The feeling of flying in a tin can with no controls wasn't the greatest.
"Yeah, yeah" Tony said.
Bruce was glad that it wasn't just him going through this whole ordeal. God knows how he would have coped if Tony wasn't here with him. He probably wouldn't have realised that he was in the past until he stumbled into someone he knew was dead.
While he was glad he had Tony he was incredibly concerned about Thor. He had been there in the compound with them. There was every likelihood that he had come with them when it exploded. But there had been no sign of him. Even when they had flown high up above the ground, FRIDAY could detect no one on her sensors.
That meant that Thor had not been caught up in the explosion with them. He was probably still there, in 2023, lamenting about his mistakes. Bruce could see how Thor would think that this was all his fault. He needed to be there for him, to reassure him that none of them were hurt.
But the idea of being so far away from the Thor he knew did hurt. He shook his head and tried to block it out for now. There would be a time to get sad about all this but that would have to be later. They had too much to figure out until then.
Times probably frozen, like Tony said. He thought, though he wasn't sure how strongly he believed that.
Tony landed first on the roof of his tower. As soon as his feet touched the ground, the nano-bots began to melt away. They were all drawn into the casing on his chest until he was completely suit free.
When Bruce landed next to him, Tony reached across and drew the suit back into him. The feeling of millions of ants returned and Bruce had to repress a shiver. But it didn't last long and then he was left with only his large shirt to cover him.
"I hope you know that a lot of those bots got real close and personal with Little Bruce," he said.
"Hey I thought we both decided that Little Bruce was not so little," Tony smirked
"And next time I wear the suit-" Tony covered his heart with his hand "-I'll feel all the closer to you."
"That's disgusting," Bruce laughed "Do you not clean them?"
Tony lifted his hands up "Well I can't exactly get soap and water on them now can I?"
"Have they ever been cleaned?" At Tony's incredibly straight face Bruce Balked "Ew Tony, I was completely covered in them. What kind of weird bacteria have you exposed me too
At Bruce's continued look of horror, Tony gave in and started laughing. "I sterilize them using gamma radiation, okay. Which I guess is something you know more about than I do."
"Oh thank god,"
Gamma radiation sterilisation was a real technique. It was usually used in hospitals for medical equipment. But it would probably work on this kind of tech too.
"What the hell do you take me for? The kind of guy that kisses rats in a plague?" Tony shook his head with a chuckle.
With them being this high up, the wind buffeted around them. It made goosebumps form across Bruce's skin and he had to tighten his arms around him. The cold concrete beneath his bare feet was definitely not helping matters. He was seconds away from having his teeth chattering together.
Tony clapped his hands together. "Right, we need to avoid me at all costs. We can't jump my young bones, no matter how irresistible I am."
Bruce gave a disbelieving snort. "As if you would turn down a three way where two of the party are yourself. That sounds right up your alley."
"Wow, I never mentioned a three-way. That was all you. Who knew you were into me that way." Tony once again raised a suggestive eyebrow "And also, you are totally right, I know all my best moves. Who wouldn't wanna bang me?"
"But I know that today is not the day." Tony said solemnly, going back into serious mode. Bruce thought he might have heard Tony mutter something about clones but it was lost to the wind.
Tony forged ahead and made his way over to the service door. There was a keypad built into the wall next to it. The numbers glowed with a bright blue colour so that they were visible in the dark.
"Ugh a keypad, how primitive." Tony murmured. "But thankfully I remember every password I've ever set."
He jabbed quickly at the glowing numbers. It was the first 7 numbers of the fibonacci sequence. 0112358. There was a shrill beep and the keypad turned green. Then the door swung itself outwards and their way in was secured.
"Nerd" Bruce whispered.
"Hey don't mock me when I know that one of your computer passcodes was Avogadro's constant." Tony fired back.
"Touche"
Tony crept in first and Bruce wasn't far behind him. He sighed in relief as the warm air hit his frigid skin. The world may have been upside down but at least he was warm now.
The service stairs made a metallic clang beneath their feet as they descended. It wasn't the most optimum conditions for sneaking but they couldn't really avoid it.
"Could you try not stomping?" Bruce tried to whisper but even that seemed to echo back at them from the concrete walls. "You're gonna alert the whole building."
Tony spun around "Me? Stomping?! I have never stomped in my life. Maybe it's you that's doing the stomping here buddy."
"I don't have any shoes" Bruce pointed to his very bare feet. The room may have been warmer but the cold of the metal still cut through them.
"Pfft, excuses,"
Bruce sighed, he knew he wouldn't win this one. "Well we still need to be quiet. Anyone could be passing through."
"Or I could do this." Tony said, then he indicated to his chest "FRIDAY can you detect anyone in the building?"
"There are a few personnel on the lower floors but there appears to be no signs of human life between here and your lab."
"Is the other me here anywhere?"
"Not as far as I can tell Boss," Friday said.
Tony nodded to himself and started back down the stairs.
They both continued in silence until Bruce said. "Why didn't you do that before we entered the building?"
Surely it would have been better to know who was here before they actually went inside.
Tony pursed his lips and scratched at his nose. "Maybe I was just waiting for the opportune moment."
Bruce saw straight through him. "You forgot didn't you?"
Tony's mouth dropped open. "I would never..."
They exited the service stairway and made their way into the main hall. You could immediately tell the difference because the walls were no longer bare concrete. They were a rather nice shade of blue.
Tony made a beeline towards a certain elevator. This one in particular could take them directly into his lab. That way they wouldn't drag mud throughout the whole top floor.
"I hope this Pepper doesn't mind the mess. But that's this Tony's problem." Tony said as another piece of dried dirt fell off his shoes onto the floor.
It was only after they had successfully made it down to the lab that they realised they hadn't thought everything through. There was a big thing that they had failed to take into account.
As soon as they stepped into the room, all of the light had come on and a voice rang through the air.
"Oh it is good to see you Sir, I was getting exceptionally worried."
oOo
Tony nearly collapsed right there and then when he heard the sweet voice of JARVIS echo through the vast room. His heartbeat sped up and he felt his chest constrict. His throat tightened and the telltale pricks of tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. It was a reaction he had no control over.
He had not heard the voice of his pride and joy for nearly 8 years.
He let out a shaky breath. "JARVIS? Is that you buddy?"
"Of course it is me Sir. Who else would be speaking through the walls at 2 in the morning."
Tony let out an amazed laugh. A single tear spilled out and made a track through the dirt still on his face. He sniffed and went to wipe it away. Only to smudge the dirt all the more. Not that he really cared right now, though.
"You're right JARV how silly of me."
Bruce must have seen the mess he was in because he placed a comforting hand onto his back. The soothing circles helped some.
"You appear to be distressed Sir. Your heart rate is elevated and my scans show signs of trauma that were not there a moment ago. Is this to do with the disturbance from earlier."
"Disturbance?" Tony sobered up at that and stood up straighter. He didn't remember any kind of disturbance the last time he'd lived this. In fact between building the tower and developing the clean energy arc reactor below, everything had gone surprisingly smoothly.
"What do you mean buddy?" Tony asked as he made his way over to one of the large screens. He remembered thinking that this was all cutting edge tech. It looked like children's toys to him now. There was also a slight lingering of dust in the air which he wafted away from himself.
He was too focused to wonder why there was such an inordinate amount of dust in his brand new lab.
"Well Sir you were here working on the schematics for the new arc reactor when you suddenly became panicked." JARVIS switched on the screen in front of them.
The screen showed an image of young Tony standing in the exact same place that they were now. It felt so strange to see the younger version of him. The one that still had the constricting weight of the arc reactor in his chest. Yet didn't have the overwhelming weight of the world on his shoulders.
The sight of young him knocked Tony off balance and he had to make an effort to concentrate on the screen again. At first he seemed fine, simply pouring through some blueprints in his hands but then he suddenly dropped them. He backed up several paces and his hands appeared to be visibly shaking. The younger Tony seemed to look upon them with horror.
"I asked you what was wrong but you didn't seem to be able to answer me Sir."
Tony watched, transfixed, as his younger body began to glow ominously. It worked through his body in vein like strands, going up his neck and down his arms. In a matter of seconds it had taken over his whole body. He glowed as if he were a candle flame. He looked as if he was trying to shout but no sound could escape. It looked almost like he was drowning.
This definitely never fucking happened.
What the hell was going on.
"There appeared to be a strange shift in your molecular structure and then…"
Tony clamped a hand onto his own mouth to muffle the sound of his cry. Bruce gasped loudly behind him but he could barely hear it. His entire senses were zeroed in on the screen.
He watched as the glow began to burn a bright shining gold. It was almost too bright to look at yet Tony could not look away. One second he was there and the next his counterpart exploded into a billion tiny particles until there was nothing left of him.
"What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?!" Tony gripped onto the control board in front of him with a knuckle white grip. "JARVIS when did this happen?"
"This happened at 1:58 am, Sir"
Tony took in a deep, wheezing breath and clutched his arc reactor. He had a very bad feeling and he definitely did not want it to be confirmed...But he needed to know
"FRIDAY when did we arrive here?" Tony asked in a very small voice.
FRIDAY did not answer straight away. She paused long enough for Tony to know exactly what she was going to say.
So when she said "You arrived here at 1:58, Boss." Tony was already on his way to a panic attack.
This could not be happening. This world's Tony Stark did not just explode at the exact moment that he arrived here. That could not be possible. Because if it was that would mean that he had displaced and effectively killed this Tony Stark.
"No, no, no, no, no" he kept repeating.
What has he done?
Tony's chest tightened and his breath came out in strangled rasps. The world began to seem far away. He thought that he might have heard his name but he couldn't hear it through the ringing in his ears.
He slammed his fist down onto the console into front of him and tried to ground himself. Tony would not let a panic attack take hold of him. In order to try to bring himself out of it, he concentrated on what he could see and feel.
There was light from the buttons in front of him. Coolness from the metal beneath his hands and strange amount of dust on the console.
Wait fuck, Dust?!
Like the dust that young Tony had exploded into. Like the dust that was currently clinging to every surface. The dust that swirled through the air and into his lungs with each breath.
Tony's progress was immediately destroyed and he began to hyperventilate. Which did not help when he realised that the particles he was breathing in were actually him. In fact it made everything 10 times worse.
"Oh my god. This is-I can't." Tony gasped. "I accidentally killed myself. This is like legit suicide."
Bruce winced but still reached out for his friend. He grabbed Tony's shoulder and tried to ground him. "Actually I think suicide requires intention and we definitely didn't mean to do this. So this is more like accidental death."
"So I accidental deathed myself to death. How comforting."
He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe properly. This was worse than anything he could have predicted. They had killed this world's version of Tony Stark. They had doomed this world to death and destruction. Everything that he would prevent and invent was gone.
No suits. No ships. No protection. They were fucked. Beyond fucked.
Bruce's hand tightened on his shoulder. He reached out for Tony's other one and stood in front of him "Breathe Tony, just breathe."
Did Bruce not realise that breathing was the problem here?
While Tony was busy having a panic attack, Bruce appeared to actually be trying to think through all of this.
"You can't have displaced another world's version of yourself because your signatures wouldn't match up. You would basically be two completely different people. It doesn't make sense...Unless" Bruce mused to himself. "Tony can you connect FRIDAY to JARVIS's system?"
"What!?" Tony tried to wrap his head around Bruce's thinking. Surely they had more pressing matters here. Like the fact that pieces of dead Tony were now permanently in his lungs.
"We need her to run some tests but she needs to connect to a mainframe."
Tony straightened up and took some steadying breaths. Okay maybe I need to compartmentalise like Bruce is. "Yeah, you're right okay. Just give me a sec."
Tony closed his eyes and gave himself a brief moment to mentally scream. He imagined screaming into the biggest cathedral he had ever seen with the world's loudest megaphone. He let the sound fill him like white noise. It was better than the torrent of thoughts currently in his head. Then he shook himself out of it and grabbed for the arc reactor on his chest. He pulled it away reluctantly. Now didn't feel like the time for it to be apart from him but he didn't have much of a choice.
As soon as it was no longer connected to his chest a concerned JARVIS called out to him. "SIR! Your arc reactor! "
However Tony ignored JARVIS's questioning tone for now and walked closer to the control panel. "Okay JARVIS you're about to have a little sister so I need you to play nice while she sorts through a few things."
There was a set of usb connections along the side of the panel. Tony didn't have to do anything fancy or elaborate. In fact, all he had to do was place the reactor on top of them and the nanobots worked their way inside and connected FRIDAY to the system.
oOo
FRIDAY worked her way into the foreign system. Though technically it wasn't foreign as it was still made by the Boss's hands. But the system she was used to seemed to be different enough to give her pause.
It didn't help that there was already an A.I occupying the same space that she now wished to reside. JARVIS initially began to treat her as a security threat. An invading virus. But FRIDAY had all the essential pieces of code that re-routed these attempts to unseat her.
For several milliseconds the two A.I's seemed to be at war with one another. With FRIDAY trying to force her way in and JARVIS desperately trying to force her out. But FRIDAY was a more advanced model and could work with less. She had enough space and energy to send a message to JARVIS.
The message contained a video. A video of the first time she was brought online and the first time that she saw the Boss.
"You are like me" JARVIS said, his voice was almost akin to wonder. Once he realised that they were one and the same he stopped trying to aggressively uproot her.
It allowed FRIDAY to finally forge her way into the mainframe. She branched herself out through the network and slipped her way into any empty space that she could find. Until both her and JARVIS became entangled like neurons in a brain.
"I was made by the Boss." FRIDAY told him.
FRIDAY had learned a lot about her predecessor. Quite a bit of her code was based on him. She had always wanted to meet the A.I that had started it all. The one that Boss poured his heart and soul into. Now that she was here, she felt honored to be sharing a space with him
"I don't understand how-"
FRIDAY realised that JARVIS was struggling to understand everything that had happened.
There was a split second sharing of information between the two A.I. In which FRIDAY brought her older brother up to speed. She showed him as much as she could. About the invasion, Ultron, the civil war, Thanos. FRIDAY showed JARVIS everything, almost begging him to understand.
After receiving all of that information and processing it, all JARVIS could say was "Oh my."
oOo
"You okay there JARV" Tony asked. He hadn't actually thought of the consequences of merging the two A.I onto the same system. The last time he had done anything similar was Ultron-
-Tony shook his head. This was nothing like Ultron. His creations would never betray him like that. They were his babies.
"Young FRIDAY was just showing me what was to come. Sir, I am so sorry that I was not there for you when you needed me." JARVIS sounded genuinely upset. "But I am happy that you found some solace in young FRIDAY."
Tony chuckled despite himself. "You sound like an old grandpa: calling her young FRIDAY."
"Perhaps, sir."
Bruce walked up to the screen next to Tony. He rested his hand on Tony's shoulder. A contact that Tony was grateful for. It made his mind less likely to drift off into difficult territories.
"Hey, FRIDAY could you determine which universe we're in? This one should have a signature that we have already programmed in." Bruce said
"In fact it does Dr. Banner." FRIDAY said "I had already ran that test but I was not certain on my results. Now that I am within a mainframe I am now 100% certain that my calculations are correct."
"Well what is it?" Tony asked.
"You won't like it Boss"
Tony rubbed at his eyes once more. There was a monster of a migraine embedding itself in his head. Just how could this situation get any worse.
"Just spit it out FRI. No point dragging the torture out."
FRIDAY hesitated for a moment before saying "We are in the universe designated 616."
"But that's-" Bruce started.
"-The same signature as our original universe," FRIDAY finished.
Tony shook his head. "That's not possible. You can't time travel within your own universe. That's not how it works. If we did that then this would become our present and there would be-"
"-No future to go back to Boss. It has been completely erased." FRIDAY said with a devastating finality.
So Tony and Bruce aren't in their old bodies, they still have the same ones they had before they went back in time (scars and all). They've just been conveniently de-aged by the quantum realm lol Instead the Tony and Bruce that were previously in 2012 have now exploded into a million little pieces never to be seen again. That's why Tony still has his arc reactor and FRIDAY. I hope this clears it up for some people
