Chapter Text
It isn't that bad of a way to go out, Tony thinks. In fact, it's better than how he'd pictured the day of his death--he always thought that he'd die doing the thing he loves doing the most (being Iron Man, which he technically is) or just of natural causes. Now, sitting in the pilot seat of a slowly malfunctioning spaceship, all he can think is; this isn't too bad.
Of course, they failed. He failed. He can still hear the snapping of two metal fingers ringing in his ears, feel Strange and Quill's dust on his hands.
But. This isn't too bad. He isn't going out with a bang, no, but it's a pretty peaceful way to die--with the stars displayed out there for him to see as he takes his final few breaths.
He can hear Nebula's footsteps behind him and smell the steel-infused atmosphere floating in the ship. There's iron on the tip of his tongue and his fingers brush up against worn-out leather armrests for one last time.
It's nice way to go out.
Tony wonders if Pepper will ever see his recording. He hopes she does.
Dying feels just like going to sleep, there's a soft aspect to it. He even yawns, he's pretty sure. Tony's eyelids fight to stay open, drooping down instead in those last few moments. The past forty-eight years of his life don't flash before his eyes like people say it does. In contrast, he sees a happy little imagined picture of a wooden cabin by a clear-green lake, somewhere upstate he guesses.
Huh. That would have been nice.
He's contemplating the cozy house by the lake, eyes barley open, when he feels a sudden surge of warmth rubbing against his cheek. It's barely there but there's a light pointing and illuminating his face. Tony wonders if this is what people mean when they say they're going towards the light. It isn't half bad.
The strobe-like light gets brighter and brighter, up until the point where he has to squint to keep his eyes focused on the source.
And then, he makes out the slightly blurry figure of a smiling woman. It looks like she's on fire--Tony's pretty sure he's already dead by now and descending towards some kind of eternal state of being. Or just black-out hallucinating. One of the two.
But before he can get his neurons working anew, he's jerking back into his seat and the ship is moving at top speed.
The funny part--he doesn't descend to some spiritual realm, he's instead met by one Steve Rogers as soon as the ship lands on the compound's field and the ramp lowers to the grass.
"Couldn't stop him," he says. He wants to cry but he's too dehydrated to.
Steve uses an arm to stabilize him before wrapping him in the hug they'd once thought they'd never share. "Neither could I,"
"I lost everybody, they're all-"
"Tony, we lost."
He gulps, dry-mouthed. "Is...uh? Pepper,"
Judging by the way Steve tentatively looks away, Tony already knows the answer. It's further confirmed minutes later as he's sitting in a wheel chair, staring at Pepper's face on the holographic casualty report list. The Decimation, they're calling it. It does not roll of the tongue.
To break the thick layer of silence, Rhodey steps forward. "It's been twenty-three days since Thanos came to Earth."
"World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did- he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent, of all living creatures." Natasha adds and the grief in her voice is all too evident.
"Wha- where is he now?" Tony asks because he needs to know.
"We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through," Steve says, almost like there's nothing else to say.
Thor is sulking in a far corner, left alone. There's a talking garbage raccoon standing on the table and Carol. New blood, fresh blood. They could use her.
The only thing he can focus on however--his goatee (beard) is fucking itchy. God, he needs to shave.
Steve gets on his last living and functioning nerve and he collapses then and there.
What happens next, he isn't involved.
While Tony's recovering in the comfort of his room at the compound, the rest of the team find Thanos, kill him, but the stones are gone. Snapped out of existence just like half of the planet--if not the universe.
Thor disappears. Steve, Natasha, Bruce and Rhodey stay vacant at the compound. Rocket and Nebula say their goodbyes and the ship disappears from outside the compound in a single night.
Tony goes back to Stark Industries, the city in general, to pretend none of this ever happened. He re-takes the position as CEO and tries to forget that Pepper had been sitting at the same desk for years. But it's hard to when half of his best employees are gone and when Manhattan Avenue isn't as busy as it'd used to be during the day. SI's stocks go up, peaking like they never have before and Tony rides up to the penthouse every night as he gets more and more used to eating dinner and sleeping in a large bed alone.
It's like his early thirties all over again.
The events that happen within the next month are an effect of his own impulses. He comes home one evening, once again, to the empty and echoing shell of the penthouse. Pepper's ghost is hovering around him in the form of her shoes and clothes hanging in the closet, the untouched bottle of French perfume sitting on her nightstand and her fancy vegan cookbooks on the counter.
He's about three seconds away from getting FRIDAY to order a few bottles of scotch when the idea hammers itself into his head.
He's crazy. Completely crazy. What makes him think he's qualified for any of this? Yet, he re-paints the guest room and buys a shelf of children's books. Tony swaps black curtains out for sky-blue, cloud-pattered ones before filling a chest with toys and draping a fuzzy rug in the center of his project.
Peter. His name is Peter Parker, ten years old with two missing front teeth, brown hair and eyes and a sprinkle of freckles on his face.
Tony swears, he adores the kid as soon as he sees him. The agency schedules a day for them to spend together before they (mostly Tony) get to decide if this becomes permanent. Tony takes the kid out for ice cream before heading to the park to fly kites. (The same park he'd told Pepper about his crazy dream about some baby they'd named after her eccentric Uncle)
"That was so much fun!" Peter says at the end of the day, licking his fingers of ketchup from the hot dogs Tony bought at a stand.
And Tony can't disagree.
Tony Stark already moving on after fiance Pepper Potts succumbs to The Decimation? See Pictures Below! The world is currently processing an international crisis and people still have the guts to write bullshit articles like these? Tony Stark was spotted in Central Park yesterday afternoon with mystery child- he stops reading after that and laughs, throwing his phone on the counter.
Peter becomes temporary. He sleeps at the penthouse almost everyday (except Sundays, he goes back to the foster agency) and is currently shinning a new light in Tony's life, as cliche as it sounds.
"My tooth is growing in! Mister Tony, look!" Peter rushes into his room one morning, smelling like toothpaste and dressed in Batman PJ's.
It's been five months since their initial meeting and to say the kid hasn't grown on him would be an absolute lie.
"Oh really? Wow, lemme see," Tony plays along and peers at the teeth growing out of Peter's bright pink gums. "Lordy, that looks like a big one."
"Duh, s'not a baby tooth anymore,"
He ruffles Peter's hair and tells him that he can go watch Hey Arnold if he wants, since it's always on in the morning. "Take your socks off if you're going to run and wait for me to get you your cereal before you try an make it yourself,"
"Okay!" Peter bubbles, dashing down the hallway, socks left discarded on the hardwood floors.
They go through the whole CPS visit thing. Surprisingly, Tony passes. They both pass after a day of being observed eating, doing homework and playing with Peter's favorite Legos.
Peter Parker-Stark. Now that has a nice ring to it. Rolls nicely off the tongue.
And along the way, Tony texts the others about the news but eventually forgets about Iron Man and Avenging. The world is too broken for Earth mightiest heroes to fix. Are they still even worthy of such title?
Peter asks him who the pretty lady in the picture hung up in the hallway is; Tony changes the subject by bringing up the unattended juice pops in the freezer.
If he sheds a few tears in the dark that night, no one has to know.