Chapter Twenty-two
It's Leigh's family that helps Tony cope with her fame the most.
During that insular first month of post-Leigh existence, he had operated as if curled into the fetal position, his daughter at his chest, but Tony Stark was hardly the only person his wife had influenced. When the news shows and serious journalists and gossip rags couldn't get anything out of him but creative, obscured links to the 60 Minutes website and his interview with Stahl, they gave up on him and asked everyone else.
Those who are in the business of exploiting scandals (and quite a few who aren't) try to find something salacious in her past, but all they dig up is the story of the attack at the farmhouse 21 days after the Snap. Because there is an unprecedented wealth of goodwill and affection for Leigh Balci Stark, this backfires. Spectacularly. The writers who had leaned in hard on the 'beautiful, isolated, possibly rich white woman' are systematically shamed and ridiculed for what they enabled. Leigh's assailant and his mother (who is now a high-powered lobbyist at an expensive firm based in Ohio) are called to account for their actions, both the attack and the cover-up. Tony almost, almost sympathizes with the woman when she loses her job, because she points out that Leigh's career would have almost certainly gone differently had she been prosecuted for the shooting, which is technically true.
Thanks to the nature of Leigh's current fame, though, a letter from District Attorneys around the country starts to circulate. Every single one of them state that they would never have prosecuted a victim such as Leigh Balci.
Tony is only aware of these things tangentially, however. Even though he'd never met any of them in his life, and had heard about them rarely, given how much their loss hurt his wife, his in-laws step up when it comes to Leigh and the press attention. This shields Tony and Ember, of course, because her family knows Leigh, but they can't give out the information they don't have. As the press seeks to tarnish her sterling reputation in the way that Tony's so familiar with personally ('Eat Your Heroes,' he used to call the phenomenon), all they find is that Leigh was exactly the person everyone says she was. The two groups that will talk to them, Leigh's birth family and her superhero family, paint a picture of the exact same woman: beautiful, practical, kind, clever.
Far from turning her into some sort of a twisted caricature of a martyr, as he'd worried, the world's press eventually settles on the image of an all-too-human, yet saintlike figure. Lovers across the globe are thrilled and horrified by her sacrifice, by their eight days of stalemate, by the way he discovered what she'd done (all horrified, of course, even though none of them have learned about the hair wrapped around his arm). Talk radio debates whether most marriages involve the kind of love that leads two people to fight for each other's survival the way that they did. Morning shows invite mental health professionals to opine over the strength of their bond. Congress convenes a unanimous vote to award her a medal for her sacrifice.
It's all too much, would be mentally breaking, for Tony, but for Leigh's family.
They extend their first in-person overture by surprise, fifty days after Leigh's sacrifice. December in rural West Virginia is its own guarantee of privacy, or so Tony had thought when he went out to bring in some wood for the fireplace to see a familiar red pickup truck pull up to the Secret Service checkpoint.
It's Leigh's truck. He remembers it from their first meeting. She'd left it at the farmhouse throughout their marriage, protected in the barn, fluids drained, perfectly preserved. That it's here means that one of her family members is here as well. He'd seen pictures of them when he had done research into Leigh after they went camping, but Leigh had been pained by images of both the house and her family, so they didn't have pictures out for him to become familiar with.
The truck starts up the long driveway, and Tony meets it right outside the path to the house. The woman inside has black hair cropped into a pixie cut, but her eyes are Leigh's eyes, Ember's eyes.
"Hi," she says, her brown eyes wide.
"Hello. Lacey, right?" Tony guesses.
"Oh, wow. Yes," she says, grinning. "And you're Tony." Her expression is slightly impish, as if she's daring him to object to her use of his first name. It's charming.
"Come on in, it's cold," he says.
"I won't argue with that," Lacey grins. As they walk up to the house, she says, "I wasn't expecting the Secret Service."
"Some people don't understand how to be grateful without being creepy," Tony explains.
Lacey stops, looks back at the single line of her tires across the snow, up the driveway. "Then why did they let me through?"
"You showed ID?" Tony asks. She nods, her close-cropped hair bouncing. "That's why. I white-listed family."
Lacey is so touched by this that she starts to cry, and Tony can't take it, so he offers her a thin smile and heads for the house, kicking a path through the snow so her fashionable boots won't get too crusted with it. When she makes it to the door he holds open for her, and Lacey Balci reaches out and squeezes his hand briefly before going inside.
"I'm sorry I didn't call ahead. I got the feeling that the response would be, 'this isn't a good time.'"
"Hoped to get stuck in the snow and prey on my vaunted hospitality?" he guesses. There have been multiple articles written about how closed-off and reticent to practically everyone who contacts him.
Her crooked smile is unapologetic as she nods. "This house is lovely," she tells him.
"Your sister designed it."
Tony's emotionally unprepared for the way that Lacey leans against the wall beside the door when she hears this, resting a reverent hand on the wood, whispering to herself. He recognizes that look, sees a kinship in the loss, and she's right, he would have rejected this chance to see her, if it had been offered. Tony leaves her alone, heading into the kitchen to warm up some water for hot chocolate, tea, or coffee, whichever she'll choose. He lays out the packets for each option, using the busywork to help him choke off the neural pathways that send those pain signals to his receptive brain.
"Ember will be awake from her nap in about twenty," he says when Lacey comes into the kitchen to find him.
"I came for you, too, you know," she says with a challenging smile. "Leigh always loved hard, if that makes sense. She used to complain to me about how exhausting it was, sometimes, especially in school. You know how they say that people die on Everest because they want the summit so badly they use up the energy they needed to get back down? Leigh loves like that. She always did." Lacey picks up a packet of hot chocolate with rainbow marshmallows and holds it up. "Will your daughter forgive me if I pick this one? It's not the last one, right?"
"She won't drink it. Wants the number of each color marshmallow to be equal, or it's 'not yummy,'" Tony confesses. "Go for it."
"Hell yes, I'm gonna love this kid, aren't I?"
"Yes."
"Well anyway, about the loving thing- I figure, she loved you, so she left a lot of herself behind, inside you. And she took a lot of you with her. So you're part Balci now."
"I'll give you a million dollars to leave and come back in about twenty years when I'm emotionally ready for this shit," Tony tells her impulsively.
"Nice try," Lacey says, grinning. "Stuck with us, now."
8888888888
Christmas with the Balcis is bittersweet and wonderful. Ember thrives among Tony's in-laws, and their lives soon turn with a familiar rhythm over the next year. Sporadic video calls with Avengers, frequent video calls with aunts and uncles and grandparents, and in between, holidays and visits. By the anniversary of Leigh's death in October 2024, Tony has been waiting with anxious anticipation for the kind of easing of his grief that he'd felt in April of 2019- but it doesn't come.
He feels every bit as empty, lost, and broken as he had in 2023, he's just better at hiding it.
-or so Tony had thought.
Rhodey sits him down the night before Ember's first real Halloween. He's got his son Ellis up on his shoulder, he looks tired as fuck, and still he's taking time for this lecture. Tony can see what's coming a mile away, and there are no countermeasures he can fire to head it off.
"I know you said fifty years, Tony, but you can't realistically do that, you know that, right? Ember deserves to grow up with a whole father," Rhodey says.
"Better a shell of one than none at all, right?" Tony tries to joke.
"Look at me," Rhodey says, though he's less intimidating than he probably thinks he is, as he settles his serious-faced infant on his lap. "You have to stop telling yourself that, and start filling that shell back in. Pick a project."
"You've been talking to Pepper."
"I'd rather talk to you, but you're so busy treading water you won't even answer my emails anymore. I'm stuck getting news about you from colleagues. What have you even been doing?"
"Nothing," Tony says. "Everything. I play with Ember. I chop firewood. I fiddle with nanotech. I daydream."
He doesn't have to say about whom, or admit the minuscule amount of time each of those activities takes up, in relation to the last one.
"I'm saying this now because you won't punch me with my son on my lap, Tony, but you need to move on."
"Take it from me, children know when your words are poison, even when they don't understand them, Rhodes," Tony says coldly. "Of all the audacity," he whispers, knowing he can't get louder, but understanding, thanks to learning about it from Leigh, the power of getting quieter when angry. "Almost none of you were content, after the Snap. There was no question about fixing it, when we were offered the opportunity. I spent those years with my wife planning for that moment, and everyone was fine with that. But now that it's only one life lost instead of billions, I'm supposed to accept it?"
"That's not what I-"
"How do you think it feels to have loved her that much, and to constantly hear, from everyone, even strangers, that her sacrifice was worth the lives she saved?" Tony asks him.
"I didn't realize that was hurtful to you, Tony," Rhodey whispers.
"It is. You want me to have a project? Well, guess what. You've convinced me. Now I've got one," he practically growls at Rhodey. It's too loud, upsetting Ellis. Tony pushes off of the chair he's been sitting on, looking around for Aleshia. It's time to go back home.
Rhodey calls out after him. "Tony, you can't possibly-"
"Watch me."
8888888888
When they get back, Ember's unhappy about having to leave early, but he calls up her grandparents and sets her up with the costume she'd picked out, so she can show them. He sits on the couch and watches her show off the perfect edges of her giant juice box, how Tony's shiny color printouts are identical to the smaller version she holds up next to it, but his mind is elsewhere.
Tony can hardly believe he's allowed a year to pass by before he's given this crazy long-shot idea real scrutiny. He supposes it's because he'd done just what Natasha had told him to do- wallow. Oh, he'd also focused on R&D for Stark Industries, spent a hell of a lot of time with the Balci family, and devoted a lot of effort and love to helping Ember through that first year, but now? Now it's time to buckle down. Now it's time to see if he can make this nonsensical idea work.
8888888888
Tony goes to Hank Pym's house the next chance he can get, after dropping Ember off for an extended weekend at the farmhouse in Pennsylvania.
"I wondered if I would see you. Took longer than I expected," Pym tells him at the door of his (now tropical beach) house.
Tony waits until they're seated in the quirky living room area before launching into his pitch. "I know you made more particles for Steve Rogers. He never said anything, but there's no way in hell he would have let them stay stolen in the past if he could help it."
Pym inclines his head. "You're right."
"I'm here to offer you whatever funding you want, for whatever research you'd use it for, if you can make me a steady supply of particles for a project I'm about to start," Tony tells him.
"I'm not interested in funding."
"And I'm not interested in funding anything. What I am interested in is having the ability to use the Quantum Tunnel I'm about to build at my lake house in West Virginia. Which is guarded by the Secret Service, if you're worried about access by any riffraff." Tony leans forward in the easy chair he's sitting in. He knows he looks desperate. In fact, he's counting on it. "I know you lost your wife for a long time. I know you spent a lot of energy and effort trying to save her."
"I lost a lot of myself in the process, Tony," Pym says gently.
"It would have been easier to make that sound like sage advice if I couldn't see her by looking out this window, sir," Tony points out. "I'm going to do this. You can help me, make sure another little girl doesn't grow up with an obsessed, miserable single father, or you can watch history repeat itself. I went out and bought a stack of postcards. I can send one every week. With pictures."
Pym looks at him with what feels like new respect. That it's tinged with disappointment is not Tony's problem.
"Help me, Mr. Pym. If I succeed, I won't ever get the closure that you got. I think you know that." Pym nods soberly. "What I will get is the ability to sleep at night. A period of time where my daughter knows her mother. More hope. And the knowledge that a version of myself has the life I long for. If that's enough for me, sir, it should be enough for you."
Pym stands up. "I didn't know if you knew what you were doing enough to say that." He breathes out, shakes his head. "I didn't want to be the one to tell you."
"I'm smarter than the 'man in a can' persona, at least sometimes." Tony spreads his hands out and shrugs.
"This is a lot of work for very little reward, you know."
"A lot of my life has been like that, lately."
8888888888
Tony constructs his Quantum Tunnel in a sub-basement he builds himself. This makes sure it won't be on any blueprints, and he has to spend about six months teaching himself the kind of things that he could have asked Leigh to explain to him in a few weeks, but it's worth it. Part of what takes so long is that Tony doesn't allow anyone other than Hank Pym to know what it is that he's doing. If he comes up against a problem, Tony has to figure out how to solve it with just the internet to guide him, without consulting any experts directly. He can tell that the older scientist had been hit hard by Tony's comparison between the two of them, and he trusts that Pym will keep Tony's secret to himself.
Ember notices some things. She teases that he takes a lot of showers, but that's more innocuous than her seeing obvious dirt and concrete dust particles coating his clothing. He has to replace the washer and dryer he and Leigh had purchased when they moved in because of all of the particulate he rinses out of his clothes in the wash. Ember picks out a blue set, and he overrules her and chooses bright red. It's close to her sixth birthday when Tony's finished, which is lucky, because he doesn't have to make up a reason to ask his in-laws to take her for some time, so he can visit a friend in the tropics.
Pym pores over Tony's detailed pictures and schematics quite a bit before handing over the vials he'd promised.
"What's your step one?" he asks.
"I have a… friend with the ability to look into alternate universes," Tony confesses.
Pym's quick glance toward him is sharp. "So that's why you are so confident. It's still not- You can't checkbox them with some kind of magic marker, you know. You'll still have to figure out a way to tell them apart."
"One thing at a time," Tony says casually.
He's worried about that, yes. The likelihood of his plan succeeding is actually astronomical. He'll probably go insane first, which is exactly the opposite of what Leigh would have wanted him to do for Ember, especially considering the bleakness of his optimum outcome, but Tony's resolute. He knows what to do, he's going to do it, and when he's finished, when he has succeeded, he hopes he can live with himself.
If he can't, he'll find that one particular alternate universe and just… watch it. Like a soap opera.
There are worse lives to live.
8888888888
For his first attempt to get Doctor Strange's help, Tony picks a half hour before he knows that Doctor Bruce Banner will come flying through the ceiling of 117A Bleeker Street. That will give Strange no leeway to do anything about the things Tony asks him about. No time to do research, no time to meddle, no time to do anything other than deal with the ceiling-crashing intruder and then bring 2023 Tony in to explain the threat.
Ironically, Tony's plan explains Strange's hostile attitude toward him during that whole ordeal. He supposes that makes an odd sort of sense.
Hank Pym had done a lot of fiddling with Tony's time travel suit, adding extra protections thanks to the possibility that Tony will need to make many, many trips with it. The extent of his meddling has left Tony with the impression that he's either very worried, or wants Tony to feel like he ought to be.
In practical terms, this means that a lot, maybe everything, is riding on Doctor Stephen Strange.
Tony makes sure he has plenty of vials attached to his suit and a demonstrably different outfit from what his past self is wearing today, and then punches in the coordinates of his destination. With a deep breath, he slams his hand down on the button that sends him on his first trip of many.
He lands in a nearby alley. With a tap, his clothing shifts to the bespoke suit he has put on for the occasion. Tony walks over to the door to the New York Sanctum and knocks. It opens inward, with no visible human interference.
Tony decides to take this to mean the magic contained therein either approves of his mission, or it knows better than to deny him the opportunity to plead his case.
"Hello? Looking for a grown-up Harry Potter after Lasik, anyone seen him?" he asks the empty room.
"Tony Stark. You must want something, or you'd have gone with Snape, I think," Strange says, floating down the stairs with his pet cloak unfurling behind him.
Tony doesn't call him a show-off, because he does want something. "You don't have the hair to pull off Rickman. I'll concede you probably have the voice, though, if you ever decided to attempt the accent."
"What do you want? You already know who I am, I assume."
"I am on a mission of sorts. Need your specific skill set, namely, the ability to scan alternate universes," Tony says curtly, nodding at the necklace Strange is wearing.
"It's been a slow day for me, but are you- did you dress up to come speak to me?"
"Whatever you need to hear," Tony says with as much nonchalance as he can muster.
"You care about this," Strange says, walking close to Tony and eyeing him.
"Most things worth doing have an element of that, yes."
"How much do you care?"
"Please, all powerful magic guy, will you look into the alternate lives of this person for me? I'm trying to find a specific set of criteria, if they exist in her possible lives." Tony clasps his hands in front of him but keeps as much sarcasm out of his tone as possible. He's trying to walk the line, here, because if Strange doesn't twig onto the fact that he's not the same Tony Stark that Strange will be speaking to in a park in just over a half hour, he might mention something about this to that Tony.
"What's in it for me?"
"I don't know, maybe the ability to snark about it to me in the very far future?"
"Why wouldn't I snark about it to you the next time we see each other?" Strange asks, turning to look at him sharply.
Tony looks down at the floor. He looks over at one of the cases of magical items, then at the Cauldron of Destiny, an item he'll possibly desecrate by using it as a stationary object for him to stretch his leg, later this afternoon.
"How old are you right now, answer within the next five seconds." The order is barked, and Tony answers quickly, sardonically.
"Fifty-four, but I could have answered forty-seven with very little trouble. Should have chosen instantly if you were trying to prove something," Tony says. "You've figured me out, now will you fill my request? Time's wasting."
Strange tips his head to the side, his brows furrowing. Tony can see him doing the math.
"My birthday is in less than two weeks, if that's the source of your frown," Tony says. He claps his hands. "Come on, Strange. Yes or no? I have to get going. If you say no, you should know that my next visit will be about…" he looks down at his watch. "An hour ago. I'll keep pushing it back until I get what I want. It'll probably be very annoying."
"I imagine you'll dress down a bit for each iteration too, no doubt. Which tells me this is attempt number one." Strange sighs. "Tell me the name, let me do a search. If I don't see any reason not to help you, I will."
"No time, Doc." Tony smiles, putting all of his knowledge of the importance of Leigh Balci Stark into the brilliance of it. "This person isn't anyone right now. Won't be for quite a while. Your search will come up empty."
Tony doesn't tell Strange that once he will finally have time to go back to that search, after the events that will happen in roughly twenty minutes, it will already be old news.
"Name?" Strange says, sighing.
"Felicia Lauren Balci."
"Criteria?"
Tony grits his teeth, hoping that what he's asking for won't make what he wants to do painfully obvious. "Single, no children. Dying of an incurable disease sometime in the next ten years. If that's too large of a time frame, make it five."
Strange stares at him. "Stark, what-"
"Please."
"Fine." He makes a few strange gestures with his hands, holding them in a peculiar shape in front of his necklace before sliding them away from each other. Tony feels a pang; the last time he saw this man make this gesture, he had just been dealt a fatal blow by Thanos, and Strange was giving up the stone, having seen the future.
Tony feels a shudder go through him. Not only would Strange see a future where they would win, but now he would know why. He would know it was because of Tony's wife, sacrificing herself. He would know her name. Because of what they are doing right now.
Tony reaches back to steady himself on the large bannister, misses, and falls onto the stairs.
By coming here and doing this on the same day that Strange would see that one in fourteen million futures, Tony had guaranteed that he would understand the connection between what he was now doing, and that possible win.
By coming here and doing this, Tony has guaranteed to Doctor Stephen Strange that theirs is the future he saw.
THAT was why he'd given up the stone to Thanos.
THAT was why he'd trusted Tony enough to sacrifice his life, knowing he would be turned to dust.
Tell me this is the one, Tony had demanded years ago, as they fought Thanos's forces in the debris of the New Avengers Facility. Strange had known it was the one. Not only that but learning about his certainty had helped the Ancient One feel confident enough to give Banner the Time Stone during their Time Heist.
By coming to Strange today, Tony has completed the circle of time that led to their victory.
All of these realizations are helping Tony feel like what he's doing is the right choice. He'd expected to live with a sort of self-condemnation, to always feel like he was cheating time by perpetuating his plan.
Instead, he feels like he's fulfilling it.
It's overwhelming.
When Strange lifts his head, Tony has about six minutes before he knows Bruce Banner will come flying through the ceiling.
"Why do you want to know this information, Stark?"
Tony can't resist answering with, "If I tell you what's going to happen, Strange, it won't happen."
"You clearly plan to visit this person somehow. How do you intend to distinguish her universe from ours?"
Tony has no idea. "Through the information you're about to provide, of course."
Strange rolls his eyes. "A wild goose chase, wonderful. Tell me, is that thing on your chest actually a heat sink for your massive ego? Is that the real way you power your suits?"
Four minutes.
"Tell me the information, or I'll time travel back to Shakespeare's time and inspire him to write a rude sonnet about facial hair just like yours. You won't even know why you'll wake up tomorrow morning with a completely different-looking face."
"Felicia Lauren Balci. Diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in October of 2023. Further diagnosis of stage four breast cancer in December of 2026, death in September 2028. Never married, no children. Did your wife have heterochromia, Stark?"
Tony's in a hurry and finding out this Leigh's diagnosis of cancer happened in the same month and year as his Leigh's death is disturbing, so he answers without thinking. "No, why?"
Strange looks satisfied that he's gotten the unwilling truth out of Tony. "Because this version does. I'm only telling you that because I don't want to do this at random points of my day for the next five years as you try to figure out how to find her. And Stark?"
"Thank you," Tony says, checking his watch as he gets up and starts for the door. "Yeah?" he asks, not turning around.
"If you tell anyone about this, if I ever get a request to find someone's long lost stuffed animal from the 1970's or something, I will curse you to never sit or sleep comfortably again."
"Loud and clear, Doc," Tony says, strolling out, barely able to contain his elation. Heterochromia. That's almost as good as a magic marker tick. Now all he has to do is figure out how to access alternate universes with the Quantum Tunnel.
As Tony hits the button that encases him back in his nanosuit for the trip back, he hears a colossal crashing noise from the building he just left.