Okay! Sorry this took so long, I was having technical difficulties. Also, I managed to fix my account thing I'm using to raise money for my next semester at college! (The other account didn't work.) Just letting everyone know, also thank you to everyone who let me know about the problems they had.

Enjoy the chapter! Next one definitely won't take as long.

(Also, sorry, not sorry about the way this ends).

Chapter Six - Tony, Part Five

We took the Stark Expo model to the basement and Tony created a holographic version of it.

I pointed at the center. "This is the nucleus. Everything else is up to you."

He rolled his eyes and gave me a type of glare, though I could sense the teasing behind it, "I think I can recognize a nucleus, Sabrina," before he turned back to the hologram and started getting rid of parts of the model. "You ever going to tell me what's going on with my timeline? The thing you don't want to talk about?"

"There's a lot of things coming. What do you think of Shield?"

He frowned. "I'm not that fond of them, but they helped protect Pepper when…"

"When you fought the Iron Monger, right," I finished for him. "But you can't trust Shield. Speaking of which, where's your Aunt Peggy?"

Tony narrowed his eyes at me. "Why?"

"Because Peggy helped create Shield, and she deserves to know that it's been infiltrated."

"How infiltrated?" Tony asked.

I snorted. "A lot. But we can find that out more in the future. For now, we should concentrate on the element."

"Stop changing the subject," Tony said.

"Shut up and make your element."

I had no idea what was happening. So I just sat in the rolling chair and spun around as I watched him and Tony played with holograms.

Finally, he finished up and spread out the atomic structure for his new element.

"Amazing," he breathed, before turning back to his computer. "JARVIS, inventory list on what items we have here."

"Would you also like a list of items we also have stored in the nearest Stark Industries Warehouse?" Jarvis asked.

"Yeah, that'd be great," Tony said distractedly, highlighting a few things and setting those items aside.

He clicked a few items and sent them onto another list. "And can you have these items delivered to our house?"

"On it, sir."

Tony finally turned back to me, where I was sitting on a couch holding the arc reactor core.

I held it up. "You going to change this anytime soon?"

He shrugged. "I asked you to get it early. I might be fine for now, especially if we finish it in time."

I glared at him, getting off the couch and putting it down on the desk in front of him. "Even if we get the materials and make it quickly, JARVIS still has to test everything. Change your core when it needs to be changed."

He scowled at me and started changing it. "You know, I can do this on my own."

"I know," I told him. "But you don't have to."

He stared at me. "Why do you care? What do you want?"

I met his eyes for a long moment before I sighed. "Alright, you need to listen to what I say in its entirety first. With someone else with similar foot-in-mouth problems, you know how sometimes you can start off wrong. Alright?"

He nodded.

I breathed out. "You asked what I want, right? Well, I guess the most simple way to put it is that I want to be your friend."

He paused, before looking up at me. "Why? Money? New designs, what is it?"

I sighed. "You ready to listen to me in its entirety? Because honestly, Tony, you have a very stupid idea of your own self-worth, and you'll probably take everything I say wrong until it sinks in properly. Got it?"

He nodded, still looking at me warily.

I stared him straight in the eyes. "I want to be your friend because…God, Tony, you don't realize what a gem you are."

He started at that, and from the look in his eyes I could tell he was already getting the wrong idea.

I reached out my hands and took his in mine. "Dammit, Tony, I don't mean because you're rich, or even because you're a genius. Do those things contribute to who you are? And some of the things we can do together? Yeah. It is a part of you, and we wouldn't be able to do awesome science-magic fun things if not. But I want to be your friend because you are someone I'd like to be able to say is my friend. Not in a 'look at my famous friend, Tony Stark' or even in a 'I know Iron Man' way. Tony, I know you don't think it a lot, but you are genuinely a good, sweet person. And while you might have a bit of an offsetting personality, I saw a lot of your life and I know and understand the person you are underneath. And that person, the person underneath, who is a lot more kind and caring then he lets on? That is someone I'd be proud to call my friend. That is someone who I'd like to introduce to others; not as the genius billionaire Tony Stark or the superhero Iron Man, but as Tony, my friend who has trouble showing the people he cares about his affection, and is awkward in his generosity, but still one of the most caring people I know of. The one who helps people without always letting it known that he's him. Dammit, Tony, you're not just someone I'd be proud to say I'm friends with. You're someone I'd be proud to be."

He stared at me, silently, and I knew he was trying to work out what I said.

He opened his mouth and finally said. "Why would someone like you want to be someone like me?"

I bit my lip. "Tony, I told you that my last universe was my second life, right?"

He nodded. "And from the other perspective we are technically considered fictional and you got a, frankly, invading sense of our lifestyles. What about it?"

"Tony, I like to think that I do things to help others. But I told you; a lot of the things I do are selfish, and self-serving. In my first universe, I was alone. I didn't have family, I didn't really have friends, and I didn't have anything. There was nothing for me to live for, and nothing for me to wait for, either, and that's why I decided to jump universes. The Fairy Tail universe was a universe about family. And as much as I wanted to help all of them avoid horrible experiences, as much as I cared about them, I wanted to be there with them. I wanted to be accepted by them, I wanted that sort of unconditional love for me and people I could openly unconditionally love in return. I think it's selfish of me. Laxus says that despite that, it's okay that what I did was selfish, because he'd rather I be in his life than without. But Tony, this is just another example. When we died a second time, and we discussed jumping into this universe, I decided to take it, because I wanted to care for you. I wanted to be able to say that someone like you; an honestly good person, is my friend. Tony, I try to be a good person. And I know you're trying too. But you already are a good person, you've just been trying harder. Because that's how good you are. Me? I know that I'm selfish sometimes. But if Fairy Tail taught me anything, it's that it is okay to be selfish sometimes. And that sometimes, things will always be selfish or selfless, or both, depending on the point of view. And no matter what, I want you to know that that is something okay for you too. It's okay to want others. And while some people view codependency as a horrid thing (which it can be), some people also can't live without it. It's human nature to want company, one of our basic survival traits for the continuity of our race. So Tony, this is me, being selfish, saying I want to be your friend. Not because you're rich – I've survived off of nothing, and I can do it again if I need to. Not because you're a superhero – I do enough hero-ing on my own time. But because you're a good person, and maybe by surrounding myself by more good people, I can be a better one too. You are someone I want as a friend because of your heart," I said. "Not your money, not your brain. But on who you are inside. That's what's important to me."

Be the end of this, Tony was just staring at me. I had teared up some time halfway through.

I sighed, wiping away my tears. "Look, I can tell you still don't really believe me," I said. "But that's okay." I dug through my requip space and pulled out some more cards. "Freed and Cana made these; they have runes on them to create a space so the truth is only said, though it can only be used once. I have-" I checked my requip space "-three total. Do you want me to use this?"

I wished I had Yuri's artifact. A few years ago, Laxus found the cube Yuri used in Fairy Tail Zero, to create an area where no lies could be said, and Freed and Levy used it to create these cards. But Erza currently had the original. It was in her requip space when she died; therefore it's currently somewhere in space with the redhead.

Tony continued staring at me, his mouth opening before closing again.

"Do you want me to use one?" I asked him.

"You should save them," he said quietly.

I requipped the cards away and reached for his hands again. "I know it seems unbelievable," I said softly. "God knows that I imagined stuff like this happening to me in my first life. Someone coming along who would be my friend and take me away from my boring life and on an adventure – not that your life is boring. But I get what you're feeling, Tony."

I squeezed his hands again.

Finally, he nodded, before turning back to his work.

I let him, turning to play with DUM–E. knowing that Tony probably needed a bit of time to himself. He was generally not an openly emotional person.

DUM-E beeped and held out his tennis ball, which I took and gently tossed across the workshop. The bot beeped again before running after it and returning with it.

Tony cleared his throat and I turned around. His face was composed and he crossed his arms. "I think it's about time that you told me about my timeline, Rigby. You've put it off enough."

"Dreyar," I corrected automatically. "And you know my name is Elle. Are you really just saying my surname to sound more intimidating?"

"No," he lied.

I stared at him before I settled down on the couch. "You might want to sit down, Tony. It's not exactly a happy story."

"Is it really that bad?" Tony asked, sitting down.

"It's that bad," I said, nodding.

Tony paused, thinking. "Like…Obie level bad?"

I paused, thinking. "Yes."

He stiffened a bit and lost some color, though I didn't blame him. Obadiah helped raise him, and then tried to kill him three times; 1) through the Ten Rings, 2) by yanking out his Arc Reactor and 3) when they fought suit vs suit.

DUM-E rolled up, beeping, with U and Butterfingers behind him.

"Alright," Tony said, preparing himself and petting Dum-E. "Lay it on me."

"You sure you don't want someone else here?" I asked. "I can be comforting and I've got no problem hugging you, but if you'd prefer someone else I can pick up Rhodey-"

"I'll be fine," Tony said, cutting me off.

I looked at him and nodded. "Fine. But Jarvis needs to monitor your vitals and if it starts getting bad then I'm going to go grab Rhodey anyway."

Tony nodded. "…Sounds sensible. But stop putting it off. I want to know. I need to know."

I bit my lip. "Okay, first; you need to know that HYDRA still exists."

"What?" Tony asked. "You mean…the Nazis? I thought Captain America took them out in the 40s-"

"Yeah, so did everyone else," I muttered. "No. Through something called 'Project Paperclip', a few of HYDRA scientists got absorbed by SHIELD."

"SHIELD?" Tony asked. "As in-"

"Strategic, Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistic Division," I said, nodding. "Something like that, anyway. It was co-created by Howard and Peggy."

"I didn't know they founded SHIELD," Tony muttered. "Though it certainly explains a lot. Wait!" His eyes shot up to meet mine. "Are you telling me that SHIELD is HYDRA?"

"Some of them, anyway. I can name a few agents."

"How many would you guess are HYDRA?" Tony asked.

"Probably…12%, if I had to guess, just because there's some jokes with that number, and the writers probably wanted to keep it up."

Tony paused, shaking it off. "God, it's so weird to think about life like that. But it also kind of makes it easier if I know to look for patterns…" He sighed. "Still…12%. That's still a lot." Tony groaned, rubbing his forehead. "This is going to be so annoying to clean up."

"Could technically be 88%," I muttered.

Tony groaned.

"Don't worry," I said. "You can wait until we get a few more people. You won't be doing this alone. And we've got plenty of time to plan. I made sure of it.

He smiled back at me, small and tentatively.

"Okay," he said, seeming to snap back into work. "Alright, so what else is there?"

"Breathe," I told him.

"I am," he said.

"Tony, this is going to change how you viewed lots of things for almost two decades," I told him. "And you've already had a large amount of information overload today. I don't blame you if you want to put it off for tomorrow."

"I want to know," Tony insisted. His fear was only visible in his eyes, but I could sense it. "Tell me."

"Your parents didn't die in a car crash," I said quietly. "They were murdered. By HYDRA."