Note:
Well, we've made it to the last sad chapter of Exile (but not the last chapter)! I had no idea how much we'd be plumbing the depths of grief when I started this story. I am sincerely sorry if the promises I made at the beginning weren't enough to warn some readers of how far it would actually go.
The last two chapters have included lyrics from a few songs that really resonated with me while writing the Fianna/Tony sections of the story. There are probably countless songs that would apply to Tony/Leigh, and I didn't mean to leave them out, as it were, but Pentatonix's It's Different Now and The Greatest Showman's Rewrite the Stars are so beautifully suited to their unique struggles that I had to share them with you. If I had to pick one of the two to encourage you to check out, it's the latter.
Chapter Twenty-eight
You know I want you
It's not a secret I try to hide
I know you want me
So don't keep saying our hands are tied
You claim it's not in the cards
That fate is pulling you miles away
And out of reach from me
But you're here in my heart
So who can stop me if I decide
That you're my destiny?
.
What if we rewrite the stars?
Say you were made to be mine
Nothing could keep us apart
You'd be the one I was meant to find
It's up to you
And it's up to me
No one can say what we get to be
So why don't we rewrite the stars?
Maybe the world could be ours
Tonight
.
You know I want you
It's not a secret I try to hide
But I can't have you
We're bound to break and
My hands are tied
~Rewrite the Stars, Greatest Showman
Natasha goes in to see Fianna, but Tony goes into his office right away. He'd had a ghost of an idea when Fianna had used his suit, but with Nat's visit, he'd gotten a more fully-fledged version of the same idea.
After all, he wasn't the only one who struggled on that day in October 2023. If he can hand Leigh the Soul stone, why can't he hand her the power to make that day better for more than just his family?
He starts designing.
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Hours later, Tony finds out that Ember's gotten home from school in a very typical way.
"Oh my GOSH! Dad, is that an Iron Man suit for Fianna?"
He doesn't even bother to close out the screen to a blank one. "Roughly how many times have I asked you not to walk in on me without knocking, do you think?" Tony asks his daughter.
"How many times is your music too loud to hear me?" she sasses back.
Tony turns his desk chair so he can narrow his eyes at her. She's unmoved. "Yes, it's a suit for Fianna. Might be a little easier to walk around with the energy from an ARC reactor powering movement. Plus, less chance she'll hurt herself if she falls down."
To his surprise, Em leans over and hugs him tight. "You're always protecting us, Dad."
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Because the suit isn't made yet, Tony does what he often does for Fianna at dinner time- he carries her down to the table. He'd brought up the rolling desk chair that used to be down at the Quantum Tunnel controls, so she can have a bit of mobility.
Tony will be forever grateful for Nick Fury's interference/intervention after Fianna's injury. Beyond making sure she had the right documentation to receive care at the hospital she was initially taken to, shortly after she'd been stabilized Fury had gotten her transferred to the current Avengers facility. Doctor Cho had done what she could, accelerating Fianna's healing by a great deal, but her cradle had struggled when faced with the metastatic cancer throughout Fianna's system. Simply put, the technology wasn't configured to consider those cells as foreign, so the rest of Fianna's healing has to be done the old fashioned way.
The intervention has made a six month healing period something closer to a month, which is not an insignificant change, given that she's living with such advanced cancer.
"Woah, look at you!" Natasha says, carrying over a plate of mashed potatoes. "You're way farther along than I thought looking at you up there in bed."
"Why, because I can bend my knee? Woo!" Fianna teases.
"Dad's making you an Iron Woman suit! And the ARC reactor in the middle is a hexagon, just like a beehive, like Grandpa keeps!" Ember blurts out, bouncing in her chair. When the other three adults look at Tony for his reaction, she says, "Oops."
"No, it's fine," Tony says. "Yours sounded way more excited than my announcement would have been." He lets out a short breath and makes eye contact with Fianna. "There are a couple of things I need to decide about it before I get it made, though." She nods at him.
"The Bartons were thinking of hosting a spring cookout in a few days, we could set up a brainstorming session," Bruce says around a mouthful of food. "Can you get the suit ready by then?"
"Of course," Tony says.
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"You are a complete genius," Tony tells Clint. The archer has a gargantuan pile of hay set up with a spiral 'staircase' of bales leading up to a leap onto it, and the various Avengers' kids are completely entranced. Even Barton's older kids, no longer kids at all but young adults, have taken a few jumps.
"So you're set on this path, then?" Thor asks, his expression serious.
"Seems like a waste not to," Fianna says. "Farm life, right Laura? Never waste a resource."
"Clint told me you can leave messages embedded in the suits. What if saving Leigh Stark's life isn't the only thing you offer…" Laura trails off, grinning broadly, angling her head to the side.
"What, like warn them to pick off Thanos's ship right when it shows up?" Natasha says. She's been pacing behind the rest of their hay bale chat circle, but now she shoulders her way onto the stack of three bales Bruce is sitting on.
"Bad idea," Bruce says, surprising Tony. "Think about it," he says, standing. "How did you feel when everyone, and I mean everyone showed up in that guy's portals?" he points over at the Sorcerer Supreme.
"That's just the thing. I wouldn't even cast them if they weren't needed," Strange points out.
"But they were inspiring. There was already a distant news helicopter and two drones up in the air filming, when it happened. That footage was all across the world in less than an hour," Bruce says, gesturing expansively. "I don't think we want to take that away, even if we do want to change stuff. We can be prepared and still keep that." He pats his withered arm. "I wouldn't even change this. Changing things too much could make a huge divergence, bigger than any of us would have wanted."
"So what's the worst of what happened? What makes it feel earned without risking a defeat?" Rhodey asks.
"Second worst," Aleshia says, nodding to Tony. He smiles and looks down at the piece of straw he's been dismantling with his fingernails.
"That's not quite the right question, is it? What do you feel comfortable sharing with your younger self, Tony?" Steve asks.
"Save Leigh for her version of my family, that's a given," Tony says, choosing his language very carefully. He sighs, and stands up, resting a foot on the bale he'd been sitting on, and leaning on that leg. "Sure would be nice to show up there in fighting form."
"I'm nixing that, if I have the authority," Laura says, surprising everyone. "You were living your own private hell, Tony, and I recognize that. But I don't know if you ever saw the full effect of what her sacrifice had on the rest of us. I never even got to meet your wife," she says, tucking back some of the hair that keeps blowing into her face as she talks. "But I felt a connection to her, through how wrecked your body seemed to be. The fact that you were practically withered away made the point more than footage of something that looked like an action movie. You were the face of the physical and emotional cost of fighting Thanos. I think the world needs that as much as they need the spectacle." Laura gestures to Bruce, referencing his point.
"Especially since you'll both look like that, when you come back. You'll have, what? A message from us, maybe? Explaining what to do? Doubt any of us will be interested in sharing that with the media," Clint says. "But there won't be any hiding how half dead you were."
"A message from me," Fianna says, beside Tony. "Explaining that there was still a sacrifice, but this one came from both of us." She reaches up and takes his hand where it was resting on his knee.
"Pretty convenient that you have heterochromia, at that point," Scott points out. "They'll be able to see the difference, if that message has video."
"Daddy!" A little boy of about six comes flying toward Scott. He has shaggy brown hair and a massive amount of straw dust covering him from head to toe. "Mommy wants you to come over so she can shove you into the straw pile!"
"Sorry, he got away from us," Cassie Lang says, jogging over. Tony had completely forgotten how grown up she was. He wonders whether Ember's teenagehood will zoom by as fast, and doubts it. Hell, he wonders if Cassie's already graduated from college yet.
He's spent so much time trying to fix the unfixable, only to find a new unfixable problem: that he's missed the lives of his friends and associates.
"I needed a break, anyway," Tony says, shooting a questioning look at Fianna. She understands right away, tapping the armor from her suit on, to help her walk with him. Around them, the other Avengers and their spouses get up, chatting amongst themselves.
"Need me to slip Hope a twenty for getting you out of the conversation?" Scott jokes, picking up his son. "I'd need to bill you." He winks.
"Talking about it is at least easier than doing it," Fianna says.
As he and Fianna start toward the house, Tony hears Cassie whisper a 'Yikes' under her breath. He wholeheartedly agrees with her.
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As much as Tony had dreaded the various conversations they had over the three day weekend at the Bartons, he got a lot out of them. What Laura had said about his appearance had really touched him, especially because losing her had been one of the things which had driven Clint so far into a dark realm of misery.
Still, having a plan isn't comforting when it's an end of life plan. He doesn't want to live under the gun, but he doesn't want to be without her, either.
Already a tactile person, Tony's solution is to simply spend as much time close to Fianna as he can. The days and weeks tick past, spring to summer, summer starting into fall. They celebrate Ember's birthday, and Tony keeps his opinions to himself throughout the morning, but he knows that Fianna is operating on fumes. He loves both of them, so he doesn't say anything about it, but when Fianna takes a nap between lunch and dinner, he goes down into the time machine room with a few of his good flashlights and the ARC reactor for Fianna's suit.
They've taken to calling it the Honey Suit, both for the hexagonal power source and its designation as a companion suit to his. Tony sets himself up on a chair, the blank wall of the basement behind him. He doesn't have notes. If he listens back to this and it's not right, he'll re-record.
If he has time.
He gives the command to start recording.
This is Tony Stark, and I'm recording this on September 29, 2029. My purpose is to provide a record of the events of October 15, 2023, in hopes that the plan Fianna Balci and I plan to perpetuate will result in a chance to change some of them for the better.
When I returned to 2023 with the Soul Stone obtained in Vormir after the sacrifice of my wife Leigh, I was taken to the medical wing, where I remained while the rest of the team constructed an Infinity Gauntlet. Dr. Bruce Banner donned the gauntlet and reversed the Snap. At that point, across the universe, on a planet named Titan, Dr. Steven Strange began the process of gathering forces across the world to resist an attack he had foreseen through his use of the Time stone.
The attack is perpetuated by Thanos, who had become aware of our efforts to retrieve the Power stone in 2014. He attacks the facility, fighting Thor and Rogers before calling down the might of his army to obtain the Gauntlet he knows is on the destroyed property. Thanks to the magic users of the Kamar Taj, the might of Earth is brought to bear against Thanos's army until ultimately, James Barnes uses the prosthetic arm I designed specifically to hold the Infinity Stones, Snapping Thanos and his forces into dust.
Tony takes a deep breath, rubbing the skin of his forehead and between his eyes. He refocuses on the light on the helmet and smiles wryly.
Maybe I should have learned not to fuck with time by now, but sometimes the only way out is through. Why am I telling you all of this? Because I'm about to do something that should get this recording to you, and I just hung out with a bunch of you at the Barton farm, where we all talked about what we would have done differently.
Not all of the awful things that happened can be changed. Some of them can, though. Keep an eye on that two pack of prosthetics I designed to hold the stones. If you REALLY want to piss off Thanos before we turn him into vacuum fodder, use the file I've included with this message. Find Scott Lang's van and armor it up. You won't have much time, though. Maybe an hour, before the ship shows up to fire on the compound. Don't worry about the property, worry about the people. We can- and do -rebuild.
I have spent the past six years doing what I promised Leigh I would do, only to find myself being driven inexorably right back to the same place I was on Vormir. I wasn't lying when I told her I'd set myself on fire to keep her warm.
So Rhodey, Steve, Nat, Clint, Thor, Bruce, Scott, Rocket, Nebula: don't fuck this up for me, okay? If all goes well, your version of Tony gets to come home from Vormir with his wife, and my daughter gets to build Lego societies where there are two parent households as a matter of course. If all goes well, I'll leave Vormir having given the Soul stone to two people who get to go home and live out the rest of their lives together.
If all goes well, the woman I love -the woman I saved from a nightmare world, the woman who is dying of a cancer that started to kill her before we ever met- will give up the chance to die in my arms to break the cycle of grief. But it won't be broken for me. I will have lost both Leigh Stark and Fianna Balci, two sides of the same coin.
I go home alone if all goes well. I'm relying on you not to make her sacrifice worthless.
I also have the ability to check up on you.
Make it work.
Godspeed.
Tony smiles sadly, then leans over to turn off the recording. Sliding the ARC reactor into his pocket, he scrubs his hands over his face and groans.
"Yeah, fuck ever doing that again. It's good enough."
There had been a huge discussion at the Bartons' over whether or not to reveal the fake Nebula's treachery in his message. In the end, the ability to destroy Thanos and his army forever once he shows up, and the ability to save both 2023 Nebula and 2014 Gamora from Thanos's ship as it hovers overhead outweighed the need to unmask her.
He goes upstairs and puts on a brave face for Ember's birthday party.
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Two days later, Fianna wakes up beside him in bed with a cry of surprise and pain.
"I think it's time," she says. They curl around each other under the blanket until morning.
Tony wakes up with salt crusted around his eyelids.
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The plan has always been for Fianna to spend the day with Ember. Tony's there, but it's Ember's day, Ember's choice. They hike, Fianna in the Honey suit, with Tony there to lift Em up when they reach an obstacle she's worried about. His daughter is far more concerned with her own safety than she had been two years ago, but it can't be helped. She's got way more empathy than he ever did at her age, and the best way to wean her from that worry is to spend less time being concerned about safety. That'll naturally happen once Fianna's not with them anymore for him to fuss over, Tony knows. It's a self-solving solution, one he doesn't want to be grateful for.
They put Ember to bed and head down to the basement. There's no real reason to have someone there to sit with her while he's gone, because no matter how much time he spends on Vormir, he'll only be gone for a minute.
Fianna taps off the Honey suit and reaches for him. Only then does Tony see that she's wearing a grey long-sleeved shirt with a duplicate of one of his favorite shirts over it, the same one he'd worn when challenging Loki on the day of the Chitauri attack on New York. It's Fianna's way of showing his influence on her, his ownership of her heart. She looks beautiful, even as tired and sick as she is.
His comments of appreciation, though genuine, sound distant, even to his own ears. Over the past months, Tony has mail-ordered layer after layer of 'I'll think about it tomorrow' and 'not now' until finally, it's tomorrow, and he's buried in bubble wrap and packing peanuts, all of which absorb the sound of his heart breaking. Working As Intended.
Tony puts on his own ARC reactor, taps in the correct coordinates in time and space (Vormir, 2014, ninety minutes before Leigh Stark jumps from the cliff face and he wakes up with the Soul stone) on both of their suits, kisses her tenderly, and activates the jump.
"I don't know why, but I thought it would be more beautiful than this," Fianna observes.
"You caught some viral Giddy Optimism from Steve, maybe," Tony teases. He wouldn't have thought he had it in him to smile here, but Tony had dreaded this day for a long time, and maybe it's easier to smile now that he's not bearing that weight on his back anymore.
They had landed near the place Tony had parked the Benatar the first time, and both of them fly their suits toward the edifice of doom that dominates the landscape. He's concerned about how to avoid disturbing the other two people already occupying this space, but it turns out that's been anticipated.
"Anthony, man of heart. Felicia, woman of soul."
The voice is familiar, but the words are not. "No parentage, today?" Tony asks in a tone just edging on derisive. He's not going to take any of this thing's shit. Not this time.
"You find my words inaccurate?" The ghostly skull's robes flutter in a breeze that Tony doesn't feel any evidence of. He wonders if it's caused by the whispers of magic that expose all manner of secrets. "You come armored with both time and metal," it says, drifting closer.
Tony doesn't activate his repulsors this time, but he does throw an arm out in front of Fianna. "Cut the poetry, Crimson Tide. We're here on a mission."
"That much is evident. Yet, while your life force matches in both frequency and resonance, this woman's resonance is dissonant. She is not of this place."
"No one should be 'of this place,' Tony says harshly. He lifts up in his suit, repulsors flaring, as he searches for a path they can follow that bypasses this miserable Sphinx.
"What would you do if I told you that both frequency and resonance must be in harmony to retrieve the prize you seek?"
Fianna falls back against the wall. They'd agreed that there was no need for them to be particularly rested for this outing, that a full day of activity would not make much of a difference, might in actual fact make the task easier. But he'd forgotten this cursed 'guide' and its emotionally draining pronouncements.
Tony cuts the power and drops like a stone, landing directly between the red menace and Fianna.
"I'd leave. I have a daughter who needs me. Is that what you want to hear? That I'm not strong enough to make the choice to die myself, this time? Circumstances change. I'm a shitty husband, I'm a shitty knight in shining armor, and I'm definitely a shitty boyfriend, but I'm doing my best not to be a shitty father."
"Come," the skull says, turning its back and floating toward a nearby wall. It turns out to be somewhat of an illusion, an S bend passageway that only appeared solid due to perspective. Tony takes Fianna's hand as they walk, both pausing only to strip away the nano particles from their hands so they can feel the heat of their connection.
Her grip is sure and strong. He isn't so certain that his is.
The skull leads them to a platform that looks very familiar.
"Double decker death overlooks. I didn't predict that," Tony says.
The skull floats over to hover in the open space, right on the edge, seeming to draw itself up into a sort of rigid attention. Its cloak even ceases to flutter, but only for as long as it takes for the thing to speak its next words.
"Rarely has a being come twice to face this bleak precipice. Never has the same being come from two separate sources, much less with the level of certainty and determination that you both have shown."
"She and I are not the same," Fianna says, pushing past Tony to stand in front of the creature. She retracts her helmet and points down at their feet, at the second platform below them where Leigh and Tony are sleeping, curled around each other. "That woman isn't dying already. She has a whole vivid life yet to lead. I'm only strong enough to do this now, when I'm trading a few days of excruciating pain for a moment of terror. And, if you don't mind, I'd like to get on with it."
Tony's long since gotten used to the feeling of his heart growing to accommodate the ever-expanding love he has for this woman. Today, though, he feels like he's not just adding yet another tree ring of adoration, but pride, as well. She's magnificent.
I could live on this for another twenty years, or so. If I have to, he thinks to himself.
The red skull darts closer, its cloak fluttering with sudden and rapid intensity. Tony hooks his arm around Fianna's waist, pulling her back down the incline.
"You doubt your sacrifice as worthy?" it asks, incredulously.
"I'm already dying," she whispers. "Here's the thing, though," she says, struggling free of Tony's arm. He lets her, recognizing something in her tone that has him clenching his jaw to avoid a smile, of all things. She beckons the damned thing closer.
When it's only a foot away, Fianna reaches back for Tony's hand again, and once she has it, she squeezes.
"Fuck off, now," she says, pulling her hand out of Tony's and activating the gauntlet again, so that she is pointing both repulsors right at it. "We're busy."
"Very well," the thing says, drifting backwards rather quickly, Tony notices. It disappears from view.
"Kind of weak, as last words go," Tony says. "You are scary, did you know that?" he says to Fianna, tapping off his Iron Man suit.
"Yeah, well, he got on my literal last nerve," she sighs, falling to a half-kneel. "Probably should hurry, since I doubt you're up for drop-kicking me off of this thing."
"I might never forgive you, yeah," Tony says, helping her up. The tremble to her gait as they walk closer to the edge slices through him, despite all of the calluses he's tried to grow over his emotions. Then she taps off her suit and pulls the hexagonal ARC reactor from her shirt, handing it to him.
"Turn it on, I want to say something, okay?"
It's not okay. He's not okay. It's too late to say no, though. He's a shitty boyfriend, but not that shitty. "Okay."
"My name is Fianna, but I was born Felicia Lauren Balci. I met Tony Stark many years after his death in my universe, and he saved me from a lonely, miserable existence there. I'm making a record of this moment, because though what I'm doing will invalidate the need for my namesake's death, I'm only here because she made that choice in the first place. I'll never not be grateful. I got to love him because you loved him first. My last act is to give him back to you."
Fianna lifts her eyes from the hexagonal glow of her power source to his eyes. Tony reaches out and she takes his hand, squeezing. The strength of it isn't near as powerful as it had been just minutes ago.
"I love you. I'm glad- fuck, there's no time," Tony mutters, pulling her close, even though he's forgotten to turn off the recording. It'll have to be too bad. He's not ashamed of anything he'd ever say to her. "I'm glad my life brought me to you. Even though it ends like this. It was worth it."
"I love you," Fianna whispers.
They're both crying, and she kisses his chest. Then, before he is ready, as if he could ever have been, she steps back once, twice, and falls out of sight.
All Tony can do is activate his suit in the process of dropping to his knees. Seconds later, he blacks out.
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Tony wakes in a shallow pool of water. Instead of forcing his body up, he lifts his right hand and slowly opens it to see that he's holding the Soul stone.
The hard part is over, he says to himself. If only that were true.
The truth is that this hurts just about as much as it had the first time, even with warning. The truth is that he better understands the loss, knows what the next few years are going to be like, recognizes that he's put his daughter through that on purpose this time, and that she's old enough to be warped by it for the rest of their lives.
The truth also is that loving Fianna has been a privilege, something he was never supposed to do, something he'd done despite all warnings to the contrary, something he'll never regret.
But he'll regret losing her.
Always.
No amount of telling himself that she had a miserable, solitary life in her own universe and might have died alone in a hospital surrounded by politely professional faces helps the way she's just died instead.
After securing the stone in the container he brought, it only takes him a few seconds to fly back over to the mountain. Instead of heading to the path this time, Tony powers around the outside, studiously avoiding looking straight down. He looks for the platform where his younger self and Leigh should still be resting. Catching sight of what looks like the correct outcropping, he heads for it.
A black robed figure flies up toward him, and Tony angles for the top of one of the rectangular features that jut up out of the mountain, landing with his arms already crossed, as best he can in his suit.
"If I have to pop up in five second intervals all over this mountain to distract you while I hand the stone over, I will," he threatens. "I've got time, now."
"Your solution was… admirable. You may proceed."
The thing beckons, and, shrugging, Tony follows it. He's led to hover with a view of the platform. His heart pounding, desperation singing in his ears, Tony lands at the very edge, eyes searching for the two lovers' intertwined bodies. He sees only his own younger self at first, gasping at the potential that he's too late, even though he knows he can simply jump back long enough to fix it, this time.
Then he sees her. Tony had missed Leigh's prone body because of how still she lay, but also because her head was covered by his other self's Iron Man helmet. As he watches, Leigh Stark rolls over onto her side, curling her knees up toward her chest in a momentary fetal position. She tugs the ARC reactor off of her chest and her much-shorter hair drops over her face from where it had been caught up at the back of the helmet. Leigh doesn't see him, too concerned with the business of struggling to her feet.
She looks weak, gaunt, and miserable. To his surprise, Tony doesn't feel the flood of possessive, desperate, mournful love he had expected. This woman isn't his. He loves her, but he isn't in love with her. Not anymore.
How much he wishes he could share that fact with Fianna. It would probably have made her face shine with joy, to realize how firmly and solidly his allegiance has shifted.
Leigh's leaning over and affixing his other self's ARC reactor to the other Tony's pants, now.
It's time.