NOTE: Okay. If you can't handle this chapter, I've got your back. It's... hard. It's also beautiful, but I get it. You can go back and read it after Tony fixes everything later on in the story, when you know for sure this isn't the end state for Leigh. Until then, though, if you want to know what happens, but not read it as it happens, I will put a list of relevant things in the end note for this fic. You can click that, read them, and move on to the next chapter when it's posted.
Again, THIS IS NOT HOW IT WILL STAY. Also, as proud as I am of this chapter, it's really fucking painful, as the summary proves. There's like, IDK, at least 10 'okay I'm crying now' places.
As you might expect, halfway through the chapter, the PoV swaps back to Tony, and will be in Tony's PoV for the next chunk of chapters.
TO READ THE SUMMARY, DO A FIND ON THIS PHRASE: skip me ahead please
Chapter Nineteen
Tony has to set the ship down pretty far from the twin structures they've sighted, so he tells her it'll be safer to come with him. She's grateful that the nanosuit covers her bare arms as they walk, because the walk toward the mountain is cold and windy.
"I'm a complete idiot," Tony says, when they've gotten about half of the way there.
"Well that's just demonstrably not true," Leigh says.
"C'mere." He taps his ARC reactor, grinning. "I can fly us there."
Leigh's only let him do this a few times, because she hates how exhilarated he gets contrasted with how terrified she gets. Today, though, Tony doesn't lift up very high until he has to, setting them down about halfway up the path to the huge rectangular structures.
"FRIDAY can't sense any weapons or life signs, but stay right behind me, okay?" he tells her after a quick kiss.
"Okay," Leigh says. She's shaking, but Tony wants his hands free, so he can't sense her trepidation. With every step, she has one thought, because she's banished all of the other ones:
Please, don't let it be too quick, and don't let it take too long. A loving goodbye, that's all I ask for.
Suddenly, Tony stops short, one hand falling back to protect her, the other holding up his repulsor.
"Anthony, son of Maria," a rusty-sounding voice says. "Felicia, daughter of Francis."
"Are you the guardian of the stone?" Tony asks in a determined, confident tone.
"Of sorts. I am a guide," he says. "To you, and to all who seek the Soul stone."
Leigh moves closer to Tony, sets a hand on his waist, so she can catch a glimpse of the speaker. What she sees is horrific- a ghostly figure, quite literally, like a combination of a Ringwraith and a bloody skull. She wonders how it could possibly know her father's name.
"Great. Tell me where it is, and we'll get out of your nonexistent hair," Tony says.
"Such an important object can rarely be obtained that easily," the ghost intones.
"Whatever test, whatever fight you've got planned, I'm ready," Tony asserts.
Leigh rests her head on his back, tears rising. Oh, sweetheart, she says silently. I should have prepared myself for your hubris.
"If only you were, young man. If only you were. She is," the skull says.
"Leave her out of it." Tony powers up the repulsor and lifts it higher. "I could get more persuasive if I have to. I'd love to know how this thing handles ghosts."
"To leave this place with the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange. A soul for a soul."
Hearing it so baldly spoken isn't as shocking as Leigh expected it would be, but that's likely because she's spent the last hour or so preparing herself. She tenses up for Tony's reaction, but understands in the next moment that she should have known what it would be.
"You're lying," Tony says with utter conviction. "You're only saying that because you can somehow sense our relationship to each other. What kind of bargain did you offer Thanos and his daughter, hmm?"
"There is only one bargain, man of iron." The ghost advances on them, and Tony backs Leigh into the wall, standing firmly between her and the perceived threat. "You cannot leave with the stone by protecting your wife. One of you must make the ultimate sacrifice, or you will leave empty-handed. My task is now complete."
Tony turns his body, so Leigh assumes the ghostly presence is moving in the direction her husband is angling, as he blocks her from whatever it might do.
"Back off, Casper," Tony says suddenly, powering up both of his repulsors, preparing to fire.
She can just barely see the creature, but what she can see is repulsive and terrifying.
"Felicia, I commend you. Rarely has anyone come to this place knowing of its dangers, and yet you have come determined, with no weapon but love. Yours is a noble sacrifice."
With that, the ghost completely disappears.
"Super great, thanks for that, helps a lot with the potential drama," Leigh groans.
"Leigh?" Tony whispers, spinning around, his helmet retracting to reveal a look of absolute horror. Seconds later, his entire suit retracts and he falls toward her, bracing himself on the craggy rock wall they'd been standing in front of. "Tell me that was just mind games. Tell me."
She's only seen his eyes look this haunted and lost once: in the bunker, reliving the moment he'd been stabbed by Thanos.
"I can't lie to you, Tony," she says, dropping her eyes to the ARC reactor. She's not strong enough to see more of the misery she's wrought.
"Youknew?" he whispers, staggering back.
"Rocket and Nebula were pretty sure this was the deal. They came to me, afraid the team didn't understand the gravity of retrieving the Soul stone," Leigh says, walking farther up the incline toward where she can see it open out into a platform of sorts. She stops under the edge of the overhanging rock and turns around. Tony's on one knee now, head down, one gauntlet covering the fist he's supporting himself with. "They worried that if we didn't send two people who very obviously loved each other without question, the task would fail."
"So they talked you into a suicide mission?" Tony asks, without moving a muscle. "As if they're qualified to give that kind of advice?" He lifts his head to look at her. "As you're qualified-"
"Tony I don't have a superpower," Leigh interrupts. "But it turns out, I didn't need one, not for this. You love me, that's all that's required."
"There has to be some other way," he says, slowly standing. His eyes widen and his head shakes vehemently, vulnerably. "We'll find some other way. I'll, I'll-" he snaps his fingers and points at her. "I'll fly back to Morag and grab Rhodey. He's in his suit. We can fight to the death, right here. Whoever wins goes home with the stone. Rhodey's been my best friend for over thirty years."
Her heart leaps at the suggestion, but Leigh grits her teeth and asks, "How are you even going to find him?"
"With your life on the line? I'll figure. It. Out," Tony says, biting out each word with furious energy. His determination is thrilling, and his option is tempting, but that option could leave the rest of the team- of the world without Tony, and that's not acceptable to her.
"What about the missing half of the universe, Tony? You do this and it's you who dies, how will the team finish up? They need you. They need you," Leigh says, repeating the phrase with more emphasis.
"I need you more," he says, simply.
She turns away from the pain in his eyes, steps out onto the platform, sees the way it's set up, and realizes what it's for. A fall from this edge would be certain death. Leigh backs away from it. She's not ready yet.
Tony slides up behind her, and the warmth of his touch makes her close her eyes against the thought of losing him. She'd been so afraid he wouldn't touch her again after he realized what she wanted to do. Now, it's almost too much to bear.
"You are a mother," he says, his voice muffled by her hair. "You are a wife." Tony's voice cracks at that last word.
"I want to be ahero," Leigh whispers.
Tony breaks, at this, and so does she.
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An untold amount of time later, Tony lets out a long breath. "We have Scott's list of where to find Pym Particles," he says.
"And do what with them? Kidnap a homeless married couple and pay one of them to shove the other off the edge? This is the only way, Tony," Leigh says, pushing her misery up into the audible range, making it sound like chastisement.
"Leigh, for fuck's sake-"
She holds up her right arm, the 'Tony' on her wrist plainly visible. "You once said this was a bullshit consolation prize awarded by a madman. How much more powerful will it be as a weapon to reverse what he's done? Thanos gave you a soulmate and she saved the universe!"
"If that's winning, I'd rather lose," Tony says. He drags his teeth across the mark on her neck, and Leigh tries to move away, but he won't let her.
"Don't, Tony, that's-"
"Cruel? This is what you're doing to my soul, Leigh. You scraping away at it, tearing it apart, making it bleed."
Leigh stands there trembling against him until he stops and rests his forehead against the back of her neck.
With his hot breath scorching her back, Tony says, "There's no time limit to this. If I can't change your mind, then I'll wait."
"What do you mean, you'll wait?"
"I know how long I can live without food. I just have to make sure you live longer than that."
Leigh pulls free and turns around to stare at him. "No."
His jaw is set, and she knows him so, so well. Every line of her husband's body screams stubbornness. She opens her mouth to object, but he points over her shoulder to the open air and the ledge beyond.
"I'm not losing you like this. I refuse."
"And when you're asleep?" she says, hating herself, hating his completely reasonable, incredulous, crushed reaction.
He's horrified for a full ten seconds before tapping his chest, reaching out his arm, and binding her to him with a nano-handcuff. "You want to try me? I'll keep you going through sheer force of will. This is my life now. Keeping you alive. Want to see how good I am at it?"
Tony ends up using his suit to create a harness that carries her with him down to the ship, which he raids for supplies including water, food, and something to lay out to sleep on. His demeanor is fierce and self-righteous. Leigh feels like she has wrecked a car that refuses to stop working long after its gas tank has emptied and its tires have fallen off. The entire world is waiting for the insurance payout, but still Tony Stark putters along, fueled by pure, miserable determination and love.
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By day five Leigh realizes that Tony was completely serious about his plan to keep her alive longer than him.
He's managed to figure out how to feed her in her sleep.
She wakes up with an odd grit in her mouth, and when she rolls over to look at Tony beside her, he's already awake (which is usual), and smiling (which is not). His face has started to change shape ever so slightly, the skin pulling back, due to lack of proper hydration. It's a self-administered torture scheme designed to make her change her mind, and Leigh's wrecked by it.
"I expected to have to fight your determination, but not your ingenuity." Leigh sighs.
"That was naive."
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That night, Leigh realizes a few things in combination.
Tony sleeps very soundly when he's starved for resources
She'll probably die faster if she stays awake
This makes her cry, but she's long past crying liquid tears, so she just shakes for a while. Then, Leigh gets to work on figuring out how to get loose from the nanoparticle shackle Tony secures to her wrist every night.
On night seven Tony wakes up right as she frees herself. He reaches out and grasps both of her arms, throwing himself on top of her.
"Why don't you understand? I can not lose you like this!"
"You think I'm ready to lose you?" she shouts right back. "The difference here is that the rest of the universe can't live without you, either! You have to let me go!"
"NO."
Tony shifts his position so he's straddling her. He reaches out and rips the elastic from her braid, pulls the other off, taking down her ponytail, and then slowly winds her hair around his wrist, securing that with a tight band of nanoparticles.
"No," he repeats, sliding off of her, exhausted by the effort he's just expended. Not long after, he falls asleep, his hair-wrapped hand resting beside her head, his other hand still possessively gripping her shirt over her stomach.
Leigh curls herself around him and falls asleep, too.
She wakes up to him feeding her some sort of mashed, horrible-tasting stuff. Leigh's so, so tired, so she just stares at him balefully, unwilling to try to push him away.
"I love you. You're worth this. You always have been, and you always will be," he whispers.
"Goddamnit, Tony," Leigh says, starting to cry. There are real tears in her eyes, and the triumph in his expression is both beautiful and terrifying. Her sacrifice will be worth nothing if Tony succeeds, because that's not the sacrifice she was prepared to make. The whole plan hinges on him being the one who brings back the stone.
They hold each other all day.
That night, when Tony winds her hair around his wrist, it's looser than it was the night before, when he was angry. Once he's asleep, she can move around a little, including roll over and reach for the ARC reactor. To sleep, they've taken to extending their time travel suits, so Tony only uses the nanoparticles from the Iron Man suit to bind her hair to his wrist, rather than wearing the whole metal suit. This means that when she gently, oh, so gently tugs the ARC reactor free from his chest, it doesn't wake him up.
It's heavy in her hands, and Leigh wonders if it would feel that way if she weren't so very hungry and so very weak.
She scoots her lower body away from his, angling so that her head is close to the hand it's bound to, but the rest of her is feet away. Heart pounding, Leigh presses the ARC reactor to her own chest and taps it twice.
The suit enfolds her, sounding hugely loud in her own ears, but Tony sleeps on, despite the fact that the nanoparticles have formed around the place her hair is pulling away from head. The slight change of pressure isn't enough to disturb him.
Seeing the inside Tony's helmet is a revelation. There's information about everything she looks at, including a dangerous resting BP for Tony. Whispering in case he can hear what she says inside of there, Leigh asks for the suit to retract everywhere but the helmet. Then, she asks if there's a chance it can form scissors for her to use.
The effort it takes to lift her arms and cut her hair against the metal helmet is extremely tiring, but Leigh manages it. When she's finished, she lays still for a long time, almost falling asleep. Only the terrible imperative of what she knows she has to do wakes her up enough to crouch beside Tony's sleeping body. Leigh pulls the red vial from her time travel suit and slots it into the space next to the one Tony will use to travel back with the stone.
She's so scared that Tony will wake up and stop her that she presses the ARC reactor onto the fabric of his pant leg instead of his chest. Leigh slowly unfolds herself up to a stand; it's been so long since she's done this that she almost falls back down to crawl over to the edge, instead. But, Leigh thinks of Ember, of the time her daughter had told her tired Mama one day, 'Just a little more, Mama. You can do it!'
Turning her head feels so strange without the weight of her hair. Like she's no longer Leigh Stark, but someone else. She supposes that in a way, she is. She's not just Tony's anymore. Now, she belongs to the universe.
Leigh doesn't have the strength to jump. When she finally gets to the edge, she leans, leans, leans, embracing the fear, whispering to herself.
I love you so much, Tony. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry
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Tony wakes up lying flat on his back in a pool of water. Tired, disoriented, and wet, he struggles to sit up. When he finally does, he sees a glow in one hand, and a mass of honey blonde hair wrapped around the other.
"No," he whispers, disbelieving. Tony opens his glowing hand to see the Soul stone and all he wants to do is throw it. "FUCK! No, no no no no, Leigh no, you didn't, tell me you didn't," he begs, over and over until they're nonsense syllables and his throat is raw.
Reason prevails just long enough for Tony to reach for his ARC reactor, looking to create a nanoparticle shield for the stone to put it in his pocket. He doesn't want to look at the damned thing- but his ARC reactor is not there.
Leigh used his own technology against him.
After searching around with his clenched fist, he finds it affixed to his pants. She'd probably placed it there, afraid of waking him up. Tony wants to throw that, too.
He creates a carrying box for the Soul stone, crams it into his pocket, and cradles the hand with her soaked, hacked off hair to his chest and screams out his fury. Creating a second box for her hair doesn't even feel strange, but allowing every strand of it to pull free of his arm does.
Tony takes stock of his suit and his clothing and finds to his great surprise that at some point, Leigh had tucked her Pym Particle vial into his suit. A chill courses through him at the thought that she might have done it days ago. Had Leigh been that confident? How long had she been sketching diagrams in her head, waiting for him to sleep, charting blueprints of her plans to thwart his determination to save her?
They need you, Leigh had said. It's still true.
I need you more, Tony had said. That's still true, too.
Tony taps out the coordinates for his exact location, one day before.
He thanks fuck for his suit, because the walk would have quite literally killed him. When Tony reaches the rise that leads to where he knows he and Leigh will be asleep, tangled around each other, he settles to the ground as carefully as he can. If he's right, Leigh won't have put her vial into his suit yet. She's the most practical person he knows, and he's counting on the fact that she'd only give away that resource when she knows for a fact that she doesn't need it anymore. That means she probably did it just before she jumped.
Adrenaline and joy are probably flowing in greater concentrations in his veins than the life-giving energy that should be keeping him alive, at this point, but Tony doesn't care. He's going to take her home with him. He's going to bring home both Leigh and the stone.
"It is said, 'Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.'"
It's the voice of the skull guardian. Tony powers up the repulsor in his hand and turns around, aiming it right for where he knows the damned thing will be floating.
"Your services are no longer required, Skeletor."
"You cannot do the thing for which you have come, man of iron. If you do, the Soul stone will be ripped from your grasp."
"A soul for a soul, you said," Tony says, hating the querulous tone in his voice. He remembers it from the first time he'd been this hungry, when he'd come back to Earth defeated to find the woman he loved dead. Not this time. This time, he'll come back to Earth in triumph with the stone -and Leigh. "We'll bring it right back anyway," Tony argues. "What does it matter if, for a few seconds, that bargain wasn't fully paid?"
"I don't have the power to give you what you want. If there is a way to have both the stone and this woman you care for so much, I cannot divulge it. All I can tell you is that if you seek to take them from this place and time, you will lose both, and return with nothing."
"That can't be true. She's right there," Tony growls. "I can hear her breathing, you red-painted fuck!"
"She is lost to you, as long as you wish to retain the Soul stone."
Tony taps away his suit and flips off the ghostly spectre.
"That is as true here on Vormir as it is on your Earth," the thing says, its voice louder, almost loud enough to wake the sleeping couple he knows rest just a little ways away.
"Just stop," Tony grits out, suddenly furious.
"I can see how your mind works. You cannot undo what has been done. Not here, not on Earth, not on Morag, not on Asgard, nowhere." It floats over to block Tony's path and he wants for all the world to blast it into a million smug red pieces. "Hear me. Do not invalidate that woman's sacrifice for you. If you love her- do not."
Tony's shaking. He can't stop himself. The stress is rattling through him, burning away what little energy he has left. As it burns, though, a deep, miserable truth is being revealed.
Leigh's gone. Really gone, even though she's just a few breaths away, warm and vibrant as she always has been, even this close to starvation.
Tony closes his eyes. When he opens them, the skull-head menace is gone.
Though Tony's accepted what's been told to him, he still needs to do at least half of what he came to do. With as light a gait as he can manage on a week's worth of an empty stomach, he creeps forward to look at himself and his wife. Her left arm is thrown out beside her, but the rest of Leigh's body is curved towards this Tony. Leigh's generous and loving in her sleep, even though in this terrible, soul-stealing place, she had been so unrelenting and determined while awake.
Impulsively, Tony reaches down and taps the 'release' sequence on the nanoparticle bracelet he'd given her years before. He holds it to his lips, hand shaking, suddenly desperate to touch her.
He reaches out his hand- and slams it down on the button that will bring him back to 2023 without Leigh.
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Because of the nature of their time machine, everyone comes back at exactly the same time. The second he lands, Tony can see that the space across from him is empty. He falls to his knees.
"Did we get 'em all?" someone asks.
"Are you telling me this actually worked?" Rhodey asks. Tony can hear the delighted disbelief in his voice.
"Where's Leigh?" Nat asks.
Tony turns his head toward the sunset in progress and winces, closing his eyes.
"Tony?" Steve says, and it's his command voice, his leader voice. He's demanding an accounting.
"Ask Nebula," Tony spits. "Ask Rocket. Ask Bruce."
"I know nothing," Nebula rasps out.
"Bruce?" Steve turns, focuses his laser-sharp concern away from Tony, which is a relief.
"There was a concern about the efficacy of the original team," Bruce says carefully.
"No. I want to know exactly why Leigh isn't standing here, and I want to know now." Natasha's voice is sharp and furious.
"A soul for a soul," Tony whispers. Leigh's soul is- IS, goddamnit, he's not doing that, he's not using past tense. She's been gone from him for barely a half hour -flamewrought and beautiful. She's worth more than all of the Infinity Stones combined, as far as he's concerned.
"Guys, have you looked at him? He's wasted away to practically nothing!" Scott says. It's the signal Tony needed to allow himself to let go, to fall. The strong arms that catch him are covered in tattoos.
Bruce walks over, probably to pick him up and carry him to the medical room, but Rhodey reaches out with one metal-wrapped arm, and stops him. "Get a gurney," he says.
"What happened to you?" Clint asks softly.
"Took a while for her to outsmart me," Tony answers back. Somehow, the thought makes him smile. She'd made him earn the motherfucking thing, at least.
"He's gonna pass out!" Scott yells.
"I've got him," Clint says. He leans his head down, but Tony's vision is rapidly narrowing, as if he's traveling down a tunnel, or worse: he's still miniaturized, running from some danger, right into one of the blueprint rolls Leigh leaves lying around her work table. The tunnel/roll starts to spin, and Tony feels very dizzy. "Sleep, Tony. You need it."
He does.
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When he wakes up, he's in the temporary hospital bed at the med room, hooked up to an IV. For one horrible, terrifying moment, Tony wonders if losing Leigh means losing his Words, his one permanent connection to her, besides their daughter. He starts fumbling with the sheet that's tucked around him, but he's weak as fuck, and it's hardly moving at all.
"Tony, hey, hey," a voice says. It's Rhodey, because Tony's doomed to repeat history, here.
"I need to check. My Words, her Words," Tony begs, not even ashamed of how miserable and desperate he sounds.
"Okay, lay still, I'll look. Where are they?"
"On-" Tony laughs, a pathetic wisp of a thing, hardly worth the effort it took to release it. "On my thigh."
"If you're shitting me, I'll leave your dick to air-dry, you hear me?" Rhodey threatens.
"I swear. Check the chart, they probably never took it out even though I threatened to sue them."
Tony does what Rhodey asked and lies still, because he knows he'll be able to tell by the shocked look on his friend's face whether the Words are still there. They are.
"Holy shit, man, you never told me about this," Rhodey breathes.
"Why do you think I hated soulmates so much?" Tony says, pressing a hand to his chest, wishing he could reach through, like Vision or Wanda could, and rip his heart out. It's only a ghost of its former self anyway, red-painted and surrounded by a ragged black cloak. Only there to pump blood and guide his daughter to the souls of others, now.
Someone taps on the doorway, and instinctively Tony knows it's Steve. He reaches down for the container he'd made for the Soul stone and tries to pull it out of his pocket, forgetting that he's no longer wearing pants.
"You're weak as a kitten, man. What do you need?" Rhodey asks.
"The damned stone is in a nanobox in my pocket."
"I know they're going to load you up with something by IV, but do you want some water, too?" It's Nat, and she's got a glass with a straw. She's beautiful, Tony thinks. He wonders if they've given him some kind of strong painkiller.
"Please," he answers her.
"You mean these pockets?" his best friend asks, holding up his pants.
"Yeah."
Rhodey hands over a box at the same time the straw is being guided to Tony's lips, so he doesn't see that it's the wrong box until Steve swears, actually swears under his breath. When Steve speaks more loudly, it's with hardly any more eloquence.
"Fucking hell, Tony, why do you have this?"
Tony looks up and sees the mass of Leigh's hair. He shoves at the glass Nat's holding, feeling desperate and violent. "Give that back. Please, don't dump it, don't-"
Natasha's covered in ice water, but her voice is still calm and soothing. "Tony, no one would ever dump that. We're bringing it over, okay? Lay still."
One single hair is sticking out of the join where the lid meets the body of the box, when Tony finally gets it back into his hands. He winds that hair around his finger unselfconsciously, and looks up with fire in his eyes, daring anyone to question him.
"I gotta ask what happened, Tony."
"FRIDAY, get this, okay? I don't want to repeat it," Tony says.
"You've got it, Boss."
"I- I can't," Tony realizes aloud. "I'll tell you why I have this-" he lifts the box "-but everything else… I'm going to need time."
The looks of disappointed acceptance on their faces feel like a compliment to his wife.
"I wouldn't let her do it. There was a ledge, a huge fall, obviously there to facilitate the requirement: a soul for a soul," Tony says, leaning his head back but resolutely not closing his eyes. He stares at the light, instead, hoping it'll glare in his vision and obscure anything he might unwillingly see regarding what he's describing. "At first I used my suit to keep her with me at night, in case she- While I slept. But after a few days, she'd figured out a way to get loose, so I wrapped her hair around my arm to sleep."
"это пиздец," Nat says.
"Last night she stole the ARC reactor off of my chest and used it to create a pair of scissors or a knife, I guess, and cut it off without waking me up. Then I woke up with the stone and an armful of her hair," Tony whispers.
"Here, Steve," Rhodey says, handing over the second box.
"You can use FRIDAY to access the locked vault I put the nanogauntlet in," Tony says. "I- you don't have to wait for me. In fact, don't."
"Nebula was worried that Thanos might try something if he knew what we were doing. Even if that's basically impossible, I'd still rather not wait any longer than it takes to construct the gauntlet," Rhodey tells them.
"Go on," Tony says to Nat. "Sorry I made you all wet."
"Better than smashing that box," she says, smoothing a cool hand over his forehead.
All Tony can think about is how Leigh's hands were always furnace-warm, and how Nat's touch feels clammy and impersonal, in comparison.
skip me ahead please
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IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THIS CHAPTER:
1) Tony tells her he'll wait it out, keeping her alive so he dies first, of starvation
2) Tony keeps Leigh shackled to him at night with his suit so she doesn't jump when he's sleeping
3) When Leigh figures out how to get out of the nanoshackle, he wraps her hair around his wrist to keep her close, instead
4) Leigh takes his ARC reactor and uses it to make scissors to cut her hair off (leaving it around his wrist), and jumps on Day Eight
5) Tony wakes up in the pool, finds he has the stone and her hair, and her extra Pym Particle pack
6) Tony travels to the night before, intending to steal Leigh away before her jump, thus having both Leigh and the stone
7) Red Skull tells him this is not the way to save Leigh, and even if he uses the stones to bring her back, it will reverse everything the stone was used for
8) Tony collapses on his return, and in searching for the box he put the Soul stone in, the Avengers find a second box with Leigh's hair in it, and he has to explain what happened.
9) Tony asks Rhodey to check to see that his Words didn't disappear with Leigh's death (he's in bad physical shape)
10) Tony is not going to be in the room when they unSnap