Tony begged and pleaded and screamed and cried using every foul word he could come up with.
But Steve still heard nothing. He just kept on hurting himself by refusing to eat or sleep, but just quietly beg and pray over his husband's body.
"Steve...please, honey, listen to me, I'm fine...I feel fine...I wish I could make you understand that I have not left you." A chill went through Steve as Tony tried to hug him. "It's ok for you to fall asleep...it's ok for you to rest...you're finally home, FRIDAY will take good care of you..." Tony paused, knowing nothing was being heard.
He closed his eyes, and his skin crawled as the darkness seemed to almost moan in despair of his arrival on the other side.
"What am I even doing here?" He asked nothing in particular. Perhaps that strange voice, calling his name, happy to see him finally asleep...what the hell was that supposed to mean?
Tony walked around for a while, seeing a whole lot of emptiness, when he heard muffled crying far off. Hope rising within him, he went a little more briskly into the direction of the sound. Some reassurances were whispered to the tears, but the whining went on as Tony started to pick up on the voices.
"There was no other way..."
"Strange?" Tony called out. All voices stopped, followed by a couple sharp inhales and more tears.
"Dad?"
It was almost too quiet to hear...but the genius heard and ran as fast as he could, not able to see at all where he was going.
"Peter?" Please don't be a dream. Please don't be a dream.
"Dad!"
Tony could not believe his eyes when he saw none other than Peter...and Strange, Starlord, that creepy weird lady with the bug eyes...
"I don't believe it..." He had a heart attack for a moment when he opened his eyes to find Steve slugging out from the bathroom. Shoulders slumped, feet dragging, and huge bags under his eyes, the soldier collapsed onto the bed, gripping Tony's hand once more.
"Steve...babe, I found them...I think I found them...I'll figure this all out..." He tried to kiss his cheek and closed his eyes.
"Dad? Where did you go? You kinda zoned out on me...where have you been? Where are we? Doctor Strange said we were snapped away, that that Thanos guy got all of the stones and..."
Tony crushed him into a hug, crying tears of joy to see Peter was ok.
"Oh, this is nice..." Peter slowed down, hugging back.
Strange stood back, not wanting to interrupt the reunion. Tony looked to him, scared and confused. "What the hell is going on?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Strange did not come right out and say it, but they were all thinking it.
"And me, the odd one out..." Tony tried to joke.
"We lost..." Starlord answered his own question from earlier. "I'm so sorry, guys."
"Don't do that..." Tony shook his head. "This is not on you..."
Starlord flinched at Tony's hand on his shoulder, but nodded his head anyway. "Yeah, well, either way, we're stuck in this hell-hole, and quite frankly, I'm a little creeped out..."
"My nipples are tingling right now..." Drax looked around warily. "I do not like it here."
"None of us do, which is why we need to get out." Strange looked to Tony. "We could use some help from the other side."
"Yeah, I 100% back you up there. Problem is, I have no idea what to do because over there, I'm just a ghost...I'm invisible."
"You'll learn to control it."
Tony gave him a look. "I don't even want to know how you know what I'm talking about."
Strange sighed, quickly explaining the astral form of physical creatures. He looked into the future and saw a possible outcome with this same scenario.
"This is it." He told Tony. "I think if you can master your projection to be seen and or heard, you can be the bridge between both places, and together, we can all come up with a plan to reverse this."
Tony thought for a minute. Peter had not left his side the whole time. He squeezed his son's shoulder for a second.
"Well, it's not often the universe throws me a second chance." Tony looked to his friends, friends?