NOTE: It's Easter almost, and I'm so pleased by the way this chapter turned out that I'm giving it to you early. I've really missed Leigh and Tony, and I think many of you have, too. It's good to be back with them.
Chapter Twenty-nine
You're saying it's hopeless, that I should hope less
Heaven can help us, well maybe she might
You say it's beyond us, what is beyond us?
Let's see and decide
We've been meteoric, even before this
Burns half as long when it's, twice as bright
So if it's beyond us, then it's beyond us
Lets see and decide
.
And I will still be here, stargazing
I still look up, look up
Look up for love
I will still be here, stargazing
I still look up, look up
Look up for love
.
Don't you, give up, for me
Don't fall, don't give up, for love
.
I'm trying to save us, you don't wanna save us
You blame human nature, and say it's unkind
Let's make up our own minds, we've got our whole lives
Let's see and decide, decide
.
And I will still be here, stargazing
I still look up, look up
Look up for love
Stars don't disappear, they keep blazing
Even when the night is over
~Stargazing, Kygo (feat. Justin Jesso)
Leigh thinks it's the eighth day when she wakes up with a powerful headache from how tight Tony had wrapped her hair around his arm. He's still asleep, but she suspects he probably woke up once already, because he tends to move his head around in his sleep, and their foreheads are almost touching. She traces her fingers very gently through his dirty, deflated hair, and he wakes up.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm very disappointed that you're not a cheeseburger," Tony tells her tiredly.
"I'll only take it the wrong way if you've had that thought at any point prior to the last week," she says, curving her lips up slightly.
"I plead the Fifth," he tells her. He sits up and she hisses at the way it yanks her hair. "Shit, I forgot. Hold still," Tony says. They untangle her, and when they're done, he frowns. "Not liking the symbolism there."
"Tony, you said to me once that I'd never asked you for anything," Leigh says. His expression shuts down, and she represses the need to say or do something that will jumpstart him back to being Tony again, instead of an iron statue slowly turning to rust out of grief. "I'm asking for this."
"I can't give it to you," he says. He's not angry, this time, not even stubborn. "I don't know how." Tony lays back down beside her, looking hard at the rocky ceiling. "I can promise you this: if you do this thing, I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to take it back."
Leigh rests her head on his chest and makes a mournful noise. She doesn't doubt he'll do just that, and it kills her to picture it. Tony will break himself like a wave on the inevitability of death, and she knows him so well. He'll reject any and all mitigation measures by their friends. There's only one weapon she has left, and it's been off-limits for their entire time on Vormir.
"Don't you dare drag Ember through that," she threatens. "I told her I was going to heal the stars in the message I left behind on my phone. She'll think you're trying to blot them out."
"She's your flesh and blood," Tony whispers. "She'll understand."
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Leigh startles awake some period of time after cutting her hair free of Tony's arm. She's so, so tired, but the adrenaline rush from nearly losing her only chance not to watch Tony die of starvation in front of her gets her moving. After she presses his ARC reactor to his pants leg, the effort it takes to pull her body to a full stand feels like trying to bend a steel rod back to level again.
She focuses on the ground under her feet, taking step after step. Leigh wonders whether she'll have the guts to just keep going when the ground stops.
Instead of seeing the edge in front of her, though, she sees boots made of the familiar metal of Tony's Iron Man suit.
Leigh stops and stares, her eyes following the lines of the suit up to the closed helmet. "What did you do, figure out how to project a hologram to guard the edge?" she asks, affection coloring her irritation. "It's not going to work, love. I'm never afraid to touch you, and that will put paid to the illusion." She reaches out her hand, certain it'll go right through his chest, but it doesn't. When Leigh's hand flattens out on the cold metal of his chest, his arm lifts to support her. "What?"
"You don't have to do it," Tony says. He sounds miserably unhappy, as usual here on this godforsaken planet.
"Tony," she starts to say, but he pulls her away from the edge that's only feet away, drawing her back across the space from what she thought was his sleeping body. Then he holds up a box, letting go of her arm to open it.
Inside is a glowing stone.
"Take it. Take him home with you. Bring everyone back. Destroy Thanos. Raise Ember. Be happy."
Leigh's impressed by his illusion, but that's what it has to be. She's slept a good deal over the past few days. He could have used his suit's nanotechnology to create an entire display. She'd find out when they walked off of the Quantum Tunnel platform that it was a fake stone, and they'd have to send someone else to get the real one.
She wants to believe her scenario so much she can almost taste it.
"I want to believe you, but- him?"
Tony's helmet retracts to show his face. He's… different. There are lines on his face she hasn't traced with her fingers, a sadness that seems baked into him, as if he's spent half a lifetime trying to connect two wires that constantly spark pain at their joining.
"I told you," he says, a trace of stubborn pride in his voice. "I said I would find a way."
She starts to fall, her body unable to hold her joyous incredulity at the same time as it keeps her upright. In seconds, he's tapped away his suit and is pulling her close. He's real, he's solid.
"Ember?" she asks, her face crushed to his chest.
"She's nine. Smart as hell, as well-adjusted as I could manage, she loves her family, her cousins, plural. She-" his voice breaks. "She said to say 'hi.'"
"I can't-" Leigh shakes.
"It's okay. She's so fucking proud of you. But I'd rather she have you in her arms than up on a pedestal. That's one of the big reasons why I did this."
"What did you do?" she whispers, finally pulling back. He smells different but feels exactly the same.
"This will help explain," he says, pulling something from his shirt. He pushes it against her chest, steps back a fraction, and taps it twice.
Suddenly, Leigh's encased by a suit, just like she was earlier that night. She looks over her shoulder and sees that, just like his suit had, this one registers the man sleeping as having a dangerous blood pressure.
It's not an illusion at all.
The different, worn version of Tony reaches out and taps the ARC reactor he'd just given her, and her helmet retracts. He seems to be able to tell something's changed in her.
"You fully believe me now."
Leigh nods.
"It was worth it, you need to know that. Whatever you find out about what I've done, it was worth it." He reaches out, brushes a thumb across her cheek, and his helmet slides back around his head.
The sound of his repulsors firing to carry him out of the cave-like platform wakes the sleeping Tony up.
"What was that?" He sits up, sees that she's no longer bound to him. Tony struggles to his feet and launches himself at her, only realizing she's wearing a nanosuit like his when he's pushed her bodily against the side wall of their enclosure. "What?"
"It was you," Leigh says. She holds up the box the older version of Tony had given her. "Look."
He takes the box with his free hand and shakes his head as he looks at it. "This is real?" Tony's other hand is held tight to his chest, still wrapped in her hair.
They'll address that later.
"Where would I have gotten this, otherwise?" Leigh asks, looking down at herself. She notices for the first time that the ARC reactor powering the golden suit is shaped like a hexagon. "He said there was- hold on." Leigh leans more firmly along the wall and looks down at her suit. "How do I put the helmet on?"
Tony puts the stone in the hand pressed to his chest and reaches out, taps on the hexagonal reactor, and the helmet slides over her head. He collapses his shoulder on the wall beside her, looking down. He'll see the ARC reactor there and put it all together, she knows, but she has to see what message his alternate self has left.
"FRIDAY?" Leigh whispers.
"It's good to see you, Ma'am," the program says, with as much emotion as Leigh's ever heard her have.
"There are messages?"
"I'll play the one Mr. Stark recorded first."
"Here, watch," Leigh says, not sure whether Tony can hear FRIDAY's voice. "FRIDAY, can you let my hand out?" The nanoparticles retract from her hand, and Tony grips it immediately.
A hologram projects from the hexagonal ARC reactor in her chest. It shows a clearly older Tony Stark on a simple folding chair, sitting in front of a blank wall.
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.
"Stop playback," Leigh says sharply. The image vanishes. "Tony, 'Fianna' was the name my parents almost gave me."
"We should go back," Tony says. "Eat something. Save the universe. In that order." There's a guilty quality to his voice that makes Leigh turn toward him and grab his arms. Because she's still got the gifted suit on, she can see that the action hurts him more than she meant to.
"I'm sorry," she says, telling FRIDAY to retract everything back to the reactor housing. "But-"
"You're here, and we've got the stone. We get to go home." Tony shakes the box with the Soul stone inside it. That arm is still held tight to his chest as if pinned there by cords wired directly to his heart. She supposes it is, given how much he loves her hair. "We get to fix everything. That's what we both want." He leans over and kisses her temple. "You're not allowed to be mad at me for something I don't have to do anymore."
"Yes, I absolutely am!" she says, horrified by the possible implications of what the holographic Tony said.
"Okay but then I get to be mad that you were about to kill yourself and leave me a widower with a three year old daughter. Those are the rules," Tony says, his voice shaking with a mixture of elation and shock.
Her legs fail underneath her, and Tony taps at her ARC reactor. The support of the nanoparticle suit is enough to get her upright again.
"Home," Tony says in her ear. "Together."
"Yes," Leigh says, finally smiling. She'll set aside the haunted, deeply sad look on the face of his older self for just a while longer. "Home."
88888888
They land on the Tunnel platform and tap off their protective suits, leaving Leigh in her new armor, Tony in his street clothes. The journey itself had been enough to shake both of them, and Leigh reaches out to steady Tony.
"Are you telling me this actually worked?" Rhodey asks incredulously.
"Leigh?" Bruce says, sounding pleased and worried.
Tony struggles away from her, walking up to Bruce, tapping on his suit's gauntlet, and punching him right in the face. Bruce staggers back, but only because the hit was enhanced by technology.
"We're done," Tony spits out, turning his back on the scientist.
"No, Tony, don't- I asked him-"
"Someone want to explain what's going on here?" Steve asks, stepping between Tony and Bruce.
"He didn't send Leigh to Asgard, he sent her to Vormir," Tony said. "Both of us."
"I asked him to," Leigh shouts at him. "We're alive, Tony, can't you-"
"It looks like that's only because the first time around I spent six years looking for a way to save you!"
Leigh taps off her new protective suit and nearly falls over. Natasha comes over to give her an arm to lean on. "Please don't take out your anger on the people trying to save the universe. Save it for me, I'm the one who said I'd do it."
"Why do you both look half dead?" Scott says at the same time as Rhodey asks, "Do what?"
"A soul for a soul," Tony says, walking down the stairs for the platform halfway and sitting heavily. "One of us was going to have to die for the stone. I wouldn't let her do it. Were there for days, stalemate."
Leigh starts towards him, and Natasha helps her over. She kneels behind Tony and hugs him. "I'm sorry," she whispers.
"I know," he says. "It was just… so close."
He doesn't know exactly how close it was- though, she supposes he does. It wasn't just close. It had happened. The only reason they're alive now is because it happened, because he'd become the driven, desperate, depressed person he'd promised he would and found a way around it.
"So how are you both here now? With the stone?" Steve asks with a reluctant tone. Leigh can tell he doesn't want to poke the bear, but he has to.
"I was about to jump, and Tony stopped me. An older Tony. A Tony who had apparently spent years looking for a way to save my life, and found it. Someone else jumped, Steve. He gave me the stone."
"We need to get them medical attention," Bruce says. "Can- Leigh, do you trust me to-"
"Yes." She kisses Tony's shoulder again and Bruce helps her to a stand before picking her up. "Steve, there are messages from the other Tony. I imagine they're important. I'm not sure I can watch them, though." She pulls the ARC reactor for her new suit off of her shirt and holds it out. "He made this suit for-" Leigh stops and shakes her head, still stunned by what's happened. "Steve I think the first time around, Tony went and found another version of me. We watched a tiny chunk of what he says, and he refers to a Fianna Balci. That was my parents' second choice of a name for me."
Steve takes the device and looks down at Tony, who is being helped down the stairs and onto a gurney.
"What happened out there?"
"We played a game of 'who can starve to death faster,' Steve. I was set to win, but she cheated, cut her hair off when I used it as a leash. Shit, I think I'm going to pass out," Tony says.
Leigh starts crying, but taking in the large breaths needed to sustain her misery is incredibly taxing. "I was seconds from jumping when his other self stopped me. It was- it was bad."
From across the room, a rough voice calls out, "Leigh!" It's Rocket, his expression horrified.
"We got the stone, but you were right," Leigh says, craning her neck to see him.
"What did you do, donate half your body weight each? No way that would actually work, would it?"
"Steve, watch the thing," Leigh says, sensing that she's about to become delirious.
"I will. Right now."
88888888
Leigh wakes up to a horrific crashing sound. She opens her eyes and can't parse what she's seeing, at first, but soon realizes that's because she's falling, and her vision is enhanced by the heads up display inside the helmet she's wearing.
"FRIDAY, is there some kind of safety mechanism for when I land?" she blurts out, arms flailing, fear blasting her heart rate straight off of the charts.
"LEIGH!" Tony's voice calls out.
"I'm here!" she yells, and uncommanded, the repulsors of her suit flare to life. The suit is moving her arms for her, just as she'd asked, and the end result is that she stops a foot above the dirt and mud and water sludge that is as close to an approximation of solid ground as there is.
"You were out for longer than me. Other me warned about this, so we put the suit back on you. Good news: we've successfully unSnapped. Bad news: Thanos is here to undo it. Best news: we're prepared for him, and we're going to turn his ass into air pollution." Tony flips back his helmet so she can see his expression. He has a bit more color in his face, even a small smile to accompany the look of smug satisfaction. "Also, I love you, and I told you so."
Leigh laughs, shaking her head. "You told me…"
"That I'd fix it. I think I'm allowed to take credit for this." He points back and forth between them. "Yes, you tried to kill yourself and yes, I am still very angry about that, but it was in service of saving the universe, so I have decided I'll forgive you. Eventually. You'll have to make it up to me."
"I'd be happy to, but… we're in a hole, Tony. What happened?"
He points at something that seems like it's stuck to the back of his suit. It's an arm, but it's got a shirt wrapped around the hand part. "This has the real stones on it. Other me appears to have stagnated without you. He designed fake Infinity Stones, which we've synthesized and stuck on the gauntlet Bruce used to bring everyone back."
"You're going to troll Thanos?" she asks, kind of horrified.
He rocks on his heels and grins. "According to the recording, Stephen Strange arranges for an entire fucking army to fight him, and the world ends up seeing it. We need to stall him for long enough that the cameras catch the Dustening."
Leigh's gaining strength just from watching him explain things to her, but he's still left out something rather important. "Tony, I love you so much, and I'm glad you've got a plan, but: we're in a hole. WHAT HAPPENED."
"Oh!" he says, looking around. "Thanos fired on the compound. Blew everything all to hell."
"You knew that was going to happen too?" she asks.
"Yeesssss," he prevaricates.
"You didn't think to wake me up or warn me?"
"There was a lot going on," he says. "C'mon, I need to go check the pods we set up to protect everyone."
Leigh has no idea what he's talking about, but she can guess that they'd probably activated her suit, let her sleep, and set about protecting everyone that didn't have access to a Tony Stark style protective nanosuit.
88888888
They do end up having to use their weaponry to open the pod holding Rocket, Scott, and Clint. In the process of leading them out, they find Rhodey, who has the fake gauntlet and has been fighting some weird, terrifying-looking creatures. With him is a green woman and Nebula. The two women explain that they had to kill the fake Nebula (the general consensus among everyone seems to be, 'what do you mean, the fake Nebula?') to prevent her from taking the gauntlet. Of course, the green woman (she says her name is Gamora, and Leigh makes eye contact with Nebula at this, who nods with the closest thing Leigh's ever seen to a smile on her face) and Nebula don't actually know it's fake.
The men all make faces at each other that seem to translate to: should we tell them?
Leigh holds her hand out to Nebula. "Shall we find a way out?"
Nebula's only concerned with one thing. "Gamora?"
"I've got her, if that's all right with her, of course," Rhodey offers.
"Is there a reason why I need a metal guardian to escape this situation?"
Tony flips down his helmet. "Not sure where 'escape' is, just yet. I think Leigh's just trying to make it go faster with a passenger instead of searching and then coming back. Welcome to wait?"
"Ah. Good plan, I will accept."
Leigh notices Nebula's wizened, singed arm only after she has climbed onto Leigh's back. They follow Tony, who has opted to go passenger-less for ease of movement. The sounds of weapons clashing leads them to a gap that all three can easily fly up through. They emerge into a twilight world fraught with lightning, as it appears Thanos is fighting Thor and Steve.
Rhodey hands over the fake gauntlet. "These aren't real. No reason Thanos needs to know that, though," he says, gesturing over his shoulder at the battle waging on the flatter part below them. "Heading back for another load."
Gamora draws herself up, frowning.
"My apologies." Rhodey makes a quick exit back down the hole they'd escaped through.
Leigh activates her repulsors, but Tony flips his helmet down. "Stay? You're weaker than me, and you're wired for sound. You can tell me if something changes up here."
"Okay," she nods. "Stay safe?"
"Oh, sure," Tony says, looking around them. "Two daughters of Thanos, the dude himself down there-" he breaks off, wincing. "Kicking some serious super soldier ass. Shit. Okay, I'll hurry-"
"We should fight. They're losing," Gamora says.
Leigh steps closer to see what they're looking at. Steve's being completely pummeled by the gigantic double-bladed weapon a truly huge purple creature is using on him. There's an undercurrent of menace to the larger fighter, and his sword is biting chunks out of Steve's vibranium shield.
"The older you said we beat this guy, right?" she whispers.
Tony kisses her cheek. "Yeah. I guess it was close, but we have the advantage this time."
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It is close. She does do some fighting, but while the suit makes up for a lot of shortcomings, Leigh is pretty weak from her eight day Vormir camp-out. She mostly waits for the signal that everyone has to protect the fake gauntlet as Tony locates and equips James Barnes with the real one.
The scariest point for Leigh is when, right when it looks like a really powerful female fighter has Thanos cornered, he calls down multiple powerful laser attacks from his ship. Across the battlefield, she sees yellow-orange shields lift at the hands of the sorcerers from Kamar-Taj, but their coverage isn't total, and everyone else must scramble to whatever safety they can find. Leigh sees the shots advancing every three feet, and darts out to push a silver-clad Iron Man suit out of the way of the next one. They land under the umbrella of one of the shields.
"Thanks." It's a woman's voice, but Leigh doesn't have a chance to exchange pleasantries, because Tony speaks up on the comms, telling everyone it's time to defend the van.
Leigh nearly falters when she starts flying to the meeting point. Tony's got the fake gauntlet lashed to his back now, instead of the real one. While that's good in some ways- he'd told her that he wouldn't give up the real gauntlet until it was in the hands of the man he'd built it for -it's terrifying in others.
Thanos doesn't know it's fake. Tony's been haunted for years by his defeat at the Titan's hands, and he's painted a target onto his back quite literally with this ploy.
She is impressed by his bravery, but she doesn't want to lose him.
"Tony, pass it off, please. I didn't starve myself for eight days to see you die like this," she begs.
"Have faith, love," he says. As she watches, he flies up close to Thanos, too close, she soars high to watch, so frightened- and Tony's suit seems to fail him, releasing the gauntlet.
Thanos grabs the thing, letting out a roar of triumph, completely ignoring Tony, who lands not far away.
All of the fighting stops, as everyone freezes. Leigh realizes that only about a dozen of them know that this isn't actually the real thing.
"Stark," Thanos says, smiling. He's holding the fake gauntlet in his huge hand, looking at it like it's the most valuable thing in the universe.
The smug purple asshole is going to taunt her husband, and Leigh is not about to let it happen. Not after she'd seen how much Tony had beaten himself up about losing to him last time.
Knowing the gauntlet isn't real helps, she's not going to lie to herself.
"Which Stark, you big bully?" Leigh says, zooming in with her suit to drop directly beside Tony.
"Leigh, holy shit," Tony says under his breath.
"Is this your soulmate?" Thanos asks, incorporating a skyscraper's worth of shade into the term.
"Yeah, been meaning to thank you for that. Where do I send the thank you card once you've been finely particulated?" Tony asks, moving to stand in front of Leigh, both repulsors on but at his side.
"This was never about ego, for me. It was never personal," Thanos says conversationally, starting to slide his hand into the gauntlet. He pauses, looking around and seeming to relish the way the thousands of creatures on both sides hang on his every movement. "But now? You corrupted my daughter. You turned her against me. This, after I gave you such a gift? Do you know what it's like to be a father, Stark?"
"You're 100% sure that's not the real one, right?" Rhodey says quietly into the comms.
"I've got you, Starks," an unfamiliar voice sounds across the comms in response. "Give the word, and he's toast. Make it cinematic, so far this thing just tickles."
"Don't take longer than five minutes, Tony. Bucky's struggling a bit, even though he'd never admit it to you," Steve's voice sounds concerned in her ear.
"Yeah, I'm a father," Tony says. "Can't say I ever replaced my daughter's body parts with machines as a punishment though. I mean, I have anger issues, but not at that level."
Thanos's hand sinks further into the fake gauntlet, and the tension in every single body around them ratchets up further.
"I've never planned to toss my daughter off a cliff, either. I don't know, Grimace, seems like I might be ahead on this one."
"So you know of Vormir," Thanos laughs. "I must thank you for sparing me the anguish. Kneel to me, Stark, and I'll restore that which you have lost to retrieve the Soul stone. Remain standing, and your daughter will be the first to die."
"Try to kill my daughter and I'll turn you and your entire army to dust, Titan," Leigh says, venom and victory throbbing in her voice.
"Holy fuck, nice," the man who had said he was ready to use the real gauntlet says. "I'm a hundred percent behind this plan of yours, Mrs. Stark."
"You dare?" Thanos says, finally sounding irritated. "With the world at stake, you seek to threaten me in this moment? It seems my soulmate gift is truly flawless." He jams the gauntlet on his arm, so upset that he doesn't seem to realize it is inert. "Your child's screams will echo through the universe, Starks. In the new world I will create, my people will dread that sound above all else."
He raises his hand andsnaps.
"Boom," James Barnes says over the comm.
A hush of shock ripples across the assembled throng as a large cloud of dust rises up.
"I told you," Leigh tells Thanos. "In this world? Children will toss dirt in the air and call it Thanos. What a legacy."
The Titan looks at her in shock, then at his arm, watching as his body starts to fracture and blow away. He looks up at the wave of disintegration that is flying through his ship overhead before the same ripple tears him apart into nothingness.
A cheer rises up, so loud that she wonders just how huge the army that had been raised up could possibly be.
"That was completely fucking amazing!" Tony says, eyes wide, staring at her.
"Maybe we're even, now?" she asks, biting her lip.
"Yes. Fuck. I hope someone got that on video."
That's the last thing they manage to say to each other before they're completely mobbed by the people who run up to congratulate them.