Chapter Text
“No.” Tony shook his head. His heart beat wild and rapid, the monitors he was hooked up to a cacophony of sound. “You might have missed it, Strange, but last time I tried to prepare the world for what was coming, half the universe died.”
He could feel that failure in every condemning breath he took.
Strange’s face was grim. “14,000,605 times, and we never won—“
Tony jerked at that, betrayal and fear a lance in his heart. “You said—“
“I saw a possibility,” Strange corrected, a devastating gentleness in his tone. “But even that victory… even that victory ends with millions dead. Even that victory is a loss I don’t know the world can truly recover from. This… this is something else entirely. Something that is the past and the future in one, something that even with the time stone, I’m blind to.”
Tony wanted to curse at him, because Strange had said there was a way. Strange had said that there was one way to win. He had given the time stone to Thanos and told Tony that there was no other way. Tony had held onto those words with the desperation of a drowning man. But now there was this, a future beyond the 14,000,605 that Strange had seen. The 14,000,604 that they had lost, with one win that was so terrible that Strange would risk it all on a hope, a prayer, and a broken, desperate man.
“Why me?” Why not someone else? Why not Steve fucking Rogers, the man with the plan? Why not Rhodey? Why not Pepper?
Why him? Why the man who had known what was coming, but failed to prepare for it.
Behind him the five figures that had come with Strange shifted—Vision, Loki, Foster, the Quill-Star Lord guy, and a green woman he didn’t recognize but thought might be the Gamora that Quill had talked about—each of them giving him their own skeptical looks.
He imagined that, starved and thin as he was, drained of all his hope, he looked nothing like the hero he’d tried so hard to be. Nothing like the hero they probably wanted him to be.
“Because you’re a scientist. A futurist.” Strange said the words like they meant something.
The haze of colors around Strange seemed to be growing fainter and fainter, and Tony knew they were running out of time.
“I failed, over and over.” The words came out a broken whisper, dragged out of him in all their haunted truth.
“Then you already know what won’t work,” Strange said, as though it were really that easy. Strange stepped forward his ghostly visage disappearing where his legs disappeared in the foot of the bed. “We chose you, Stark. But you have to accept.”
Tony didn’t want to.
“You’re going to regret it,” Tony said quietly. The beeping of the monitors had slowed, the panic had faded away leaving only a quiet exhaustion.
“I don’t think so.” Strange sounded so sure, though Tony couldn’t fathom how or why.
Tony closed his eyes. He wanted to say no, wanted to let go of the weight of the world that had already crushed him. But he couldn’t do that. Couldn’t do that when Strange had used his last chance to save the world, betting on him. “All right.” He swallowed hard, forcing himself to nod. “Okay. Send me back.”
He woke up and wanted to die.
It wasn’t actually all that new an experience. He’d woken up wanting to die more times than he could count, the feeling heavy and suffocating in his heart.
His chest ached. He couldn’t tell if it was because of the arc reactor, heavy and painful in his chest, or if it was the sheer pressure of the expectations of half the universe weighing down on him.
The memory of the dream—and oh, he wished it had been nothing more than a dream—twisted inside of him, the edges of it sharp and cutting against his mind.
He was in the past. Or rather he was in a present that he’d already lived, and would—if he did it right—never live quite the same way again.
He stared up at the ceiling. Nothing felt real. Not him. Not the memory. Not the world around him.
“It is the 27th of February, sir.” JARVIS’ voice jolted him out of the haze. JARVIS. He swallowed down his grief. Real, real, real. “You are in your workshop. The temperature is 58 degrees with a slight chance of rain.” The mantra was the same greeting JARVIS had given him every day since Afghanistan when Tony needed JARVIS’ voice to be the first thing he heard.
End of February. What was so special about now?
Strange had said the stones would send him back to a fundamental change point in time. In those brief moments he’d had to think about it, Tony had assumed Afghanistan and the birth of Iron Man, or the Chitauri Invasion and the birth of the Avengers, or Ultron and the beginning of the Sokovia Accords, or Siberia and the death cry of the Avengers.
He had any number of traumatic and fundamental moments for the infinity stones to choose from.
But he couldn’t think of a single thing that was particularly important happening now.
In the original timeline, he probably hadn’t dealt with half of the responsibilities on his calendar, and the half he had dealt with probably hadn’t been all that big of a deal. Certainly not ‘save the universe’ levels of importance.
He searched his memory. He was still CEO; he hadn’t given the company to Pepper, yet. That happened soon, and SHIELD would worm their way into his life.
But nothing now.
DUM-E beeped at him, rolling towards him with a smoothie. Tony took it, patting DUM-E on his claw. DUM-E let out another cheerful beep before trundling away, satisfied that he’d done his job.
Tony’s nose wrinkled as he smelled the smoothie, double checking that there wasn’t any motor oil or otherwise toxic material in it. JARVIS hadn’t warned him, so it was probably fine. He hadn’t enjoyed the chlorophyll smoothies the first time around, and he doubted the years had changed his mind on the matter.
He forced himself to sit, throwing the smoothie back and trying not to gag. It was even worse than he remembered.
But it was the best option he’d found when he was trying to counter-act the palladium as much as possible, even though…
Oh.
He knew what today was. Today was the day the denial had vanished.
Emotion writhed in his chest, curling tight in a spiky ball, painful and dangerous.
Today was the day when he had realized that he really was going to die. When he realized there was no miracle waiting in the wings.
Today was the day he had decided he was probably okay with that.
And just like that everything crystallized.
He had gotten drunk today until he passed out—easier to do with the shape that his body was currently in—when he had finally woken up he’d planned. CEO position for Pepper, War Machine for Rhodey, a promotion and a few charities in Happy’s name.
Everything worked out so that when he was gone, no one would miss him. That his legacy—such a fragile, shattered thing—was in the best hands he could find.
Some unnamed emotion choked him.
“I’m dying, J.” Had he ever said those words out loud the first time? If he had, he didn’t remember it. He’d played a strange game of resigned denial. He’d known he was dying, but rejected the truth of it even as he gave in to the inevitability of it.
“We don’t know that, sir,” JARVIS responded, emotion that was in no way synthetic layering his voice. “I’m still running diagnostics and projections. We will find something, sir.”
Tony took a deep breath, felt that pinch in his lungs from the arc reactor back in his chest.
Strange had said that Tony would probably come back to an important, fundamental time. A time when he could make the most difference.
Today was the day he had realized he was dying.
Was that a sign?
Last time, even while he had resigned himself to death, he had still fought it. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. And oh had Tony raged.
Perhaps this time… Perhaps this time he wasn’t supposed to fight. Perhaps this time he bowed out gracefully.
“Sir, if I might suggest again telling Miss Potts or Colonel Rhodes?”
Tony shook his head automatically. “No, we’re not—” Guilt cut him off.
Pepper and Rhodey had been furious with him, after they’d learned the truth. The betrayal had cut deep on both sides.
He bit his lip, let the sting of it center him. Part of their anger had been self-directed. They’d been upset with him for purposefully pushing them away instead of telling them the truth. They’d been upset with themselves for letting it happen.
Of course, that was ridiculous. He’d stacked the decks against them. They hadn’t had a chance. When Tony pushed… well, no one pushed people away better than he did.
It hadn’t stopped it from hurting. It hadn’t stopped him from feeling abandoned by the only people he trusted.
It had been hurt and hurt alike, back then.
He had hurt them, and they had hurt him. In the end, when it was all said and done, they had loved each other. In the end, he had always been able to trust them.
That wasn’t true for most relationships in his life.
In the aftermath, when the truth had come out in all its messy glory, they’d made him promise never to lie like that to them again.
They didn’t remember that promise—had never wrung it from him with desperate pleas—but Tony did.
“J?” This was the last moment to back out. The last opportunity to step back and choose the path of silence. Tony was a lot of things, but he didn’t think he was a coward. “Call Rhodey.”
“Of course, sir.” JARVIS sounded pleased. Tony loved him so much; he had missed JARVIS like he imagined he would miss a limb.
It was a few moments later when Rhodey’s voice filled the room. “Tones?” Rhodey sounded exhausted. “Seriously? Three in the morning?”
Tony swallowed hard, suddenly doubting his own conviction.
Promise me, Tony. We can’t go through this again. Promise me.
“Can you come?” Tony asked, hating the crack in his voice.
Rhodey was quiet for a long moment. “Everything okay, Tony?”
Tony thought about the palladium poisoning breaking his will to live, about the Avengers that had broken his faith in himself, about Ultron that had broken the world and their trust in the people meant to protect them, about Siberia that had broken his belief in the very idea of heroes, about the snap that had broken the entire universe apart and taken hope with it.
He thought about long nights making braces so Rhodey could walk, about Peter fading into dust in Tony’s arms, about a world with over half its population suddenly gone, teetering on the edge of shattering past any point of recovery.
“I… I really need you.” Needed to not be alone with the memories in his head.
Rhodey didn’t answer immediately, clearly surprised. Tony… Tony didn’t do this. He didn’t peel apart his defenses to show weakness.
But Tony had never been this broken before.
“Yeah. I’ve got to talk to some people. Get some leave. But I can figure it out. I’ll be there.” Rhodey paused. “Do you need me to send Pepper over?”
Tony loved Pepper. He’d always love Pepper.
But Rhodey had been there since Tony was a reckless, terrified, fourteen year old. Rhodey would be there until one of them was dead.
Rhodey was the one who had found him in Afghanistan, was the one who had sent Vision to Siberia.
“You first,” he whispered. He cleared his throat, then tried again. “You first. I need to talk to you first.”
He could feel Rhodey wanting to ask. But Rhodey didn’t, because Rhodey always knew.
But then, Tony had only ever asked for Rhodey to come one other time, and Tony had been seventeen and orphaned.
“I’ll see you soon, Tony.”
Tony nodded, despite knowing Rhodey couldn’t see him. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”
He gestured for JARVIS to hang up before either of them could say anything else. He’d already stretched himself more than he strictly wanted to. He couldn’t take anything more. “Hey J, what’s on the schedule for today again?” He had a few hours before the day actually started, what with it still, technically, being the middle of the night and all, but it would be good to plan, now.
JARVIS ran through his schedule again. Meetings, meetings, and more meetings. Back then—the then that was now his now—it’d have been his version of a nightmare. Tony had very different nightmares, now.
Tony thought about blowing them off. Nobody would be surprised; he did it too often.
Which was a good enough reason to go. It didn’t do him any good to be predictable. And then maybe he could go spend some time with R&D.
That would be fun. There were always things exploding in R&D.
He could keep busy. Could pretend that everything was fine. That he hadn’t seen the universe end, that he wasn’t dying, that he didn’t have the weight of the world weighing down his shoulders.
He could pretend. For just a little while.
Rhodey was there when he got home. Feet on the table, a drink that Tony would guess Rhodey hadn’t even taken a sip of in his hand. There was a strain around the edges of his eyes.
Rhodey stood when Tony came in; it was one of the most amazing things Tony had ever seen. Rhodey, standing on his own two feet under his own power. This was a Rhodey that hadn’t been hurt for Tony’s sins.
“Hey, Platypus.” It came out far more shaky than Tony had expected.
“Hey, Tones.” Rhodey stepped forward and hugged him tightly and then stepped back and scanned him critically, probably trying to figure out what exactly was wrong. “JARVIS said you went to all of your meetings today.”
“Yep.” Tony made sure to pop the p. “Figured I was getting too predictable, needed to shake things up.”
“Uh huh.”
Tony nodded, pasting a serious look on his face. “Yeah. I was real agreeable with all of them, too. Pretty sure I terrified several department heads, heard them whispering about demon possession and alien invasions.”
Rhodey cracked a smile at that. “Did you say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ too?”
Tony laughed. “They’d probably have tried to exorcise me if I’d done that.”
He moved away to the kitchen, grabbing a glass. He clenched his fist for a second, looking at the bottle of scotch Rhodey had opened. His mouth watered and his gut twisted in desperate need.
He couldn’t, he realized.
If he did, he might never stop.
He dug his nails into his palm, trying to breathe through the painful need. After a moment, he grabbed the apple juice instead.
The alcohol would have to go if he wanted to have a chance at staying sober.
He was not looking forward to the process.
But Tony had to stay sober. The universe was depending on him not messing this up.
A burst of anxiety bubbled up, and he pushed it down. He still hadn’t had the anxiety attack that he knew was coming, but it was going to happen whether he wanted it to or not.
Just not right now.
He turned to see Rhodey leaning against the wall. The concern was even stronger now. But then, Tony rarely said no to alcohol. Wasn’t that a sorry story.
“I’m going to stop drinking,” Tony said, trying to keep his voice casual, as though he wasn’t upending every expectation people had of him.
Rhodey tilted his head but didn’t say anything. Instead he moved to the sink and dumped his drink down the drain and then poured the open bottle down after it. Tony felt a pang of loss at the sight of the amber liquid pouring down the drain. Rhodey rinsed the glass and filled it with his own apple juice. “That’s good, Tones.”
Tony sighed, slightly exasperated—and a little touched, though he wasn’t going to say that. “You don’t have to do that. I’m a big boy, I can handle you drinking.”
“I’ve always really liked apple juice.”
Tony raised an eyebrow at the blatant lie. “Don’t lie. You think it’s nasty. You like orange juice.”
Rhodey took a pointed sip of the apple juice. “Next time, have orange juice.”
Tony rolled his eyes.
He wandered out of the kitchen and back to the entertainment space. “J, put on Star Wars.”
Who better to watch than the people that had actually managed to save their universe despite impossible odds?
“Of course, sir.” JARVIS didn’t ask which one, putting A New Hope on. Tony sprawled out on the sofa, stretching out his legs so there wasn’t any room. Rhodey ignored that, pulling Tony’s leg up and settling in his seat before letting Tony’s feet fall back on Rhodey’s lap.
One of Rhodey’s hands circled Tony’s left ankle, just heavy and tight enough for Tony to feel it, but loose enough that he could break the grip without really trying.
Rhodey made a pretense of watching the movie, but his focus was clearly on Tony, waiting patiently. He’d wait through the whole movie if Tony made him. Would wait through the whole trilogy. Maybe in other cases Rhodey would push him, would get frustrated with the silence and delay. But Tony had said that he needed Rhodey, and Rhodey knew what that meant. And so Rhodey would be there however long it took.
Old Ben Kenobi was busy sneaking around the death star when Tony finally broke.
“I hate how you can do that.”
“Do what?”
Tony glared at his best friend. “Just sit there all patient-like, just waiting for me to talk.” Rhodey raised an eyebrow. “I hate that, too.” He gestured to Rhodey’s eyebrow to make his point. “I can wiggle my eyebrows with the best of them. I can do sarcastic eyebrow raises, sexy eyebrow raises, annoyed eyebrow raises.”
Rhodey scoffed. “Sexy eyebrow raises?”
Tony ignored him. “But you do it, and suddenly it’s all expectant and serious, and I feel like your eyebrow is judging me.”
Rhodey laughed. “Yes, because my eyebrow is disappointed in your life decisions.”
Tony gave his most exaggerated pout.
Rhodey raised his eyebrow again, somehow managing to exaggerate it.
Tony found his fingers tapping against the arc reactor in his chest.
On the screen, Ben Kenobi was disappearing as Vader’s lightsaber went through him; Luke Skywalker was screaming.
Tony felt his stomach roll uneasily. In his mind’s eye he saw it happen all over again. Quill and Drax and Mantis and Strange and Peter. Peter, Peter, Peter. Disappearing around him, disappearing with terror on their faces, disappearing in his arms with a whispered I’m sorry.
Tony hadn’t screamed. He had held Peter and felt him fade. He hadn’t screamed. He’d just been numb.
“I’m dying.”
Because that was the problem right now. Because that was the decision that he had to face.
A fundamental point in time.
Last time Tony had fought. He’d failed, in so many ways he’d failed, but he’d still fought.
What if this time he didn’t?
Would that fix things?
It had worked for Kenobi. Would it work for Tony’s universe?
Rhodey froze. The hand around Tony’s ankle tightened. “What?”
Tony swallowed. “The arc reactor is poisoning me.”
It must have only taken a moment for the words to make sense, because Rhodey’s eyes landed on his chest. Tony watched Rhodey’s eyes as he ran through all the variables. The shrapnel, possible surgeries, probably the periodic table.
True, Rhodey wasn’t a genius on Tony’s level—few people were—but he was still a genius on his own merit.
Slowly, Tony reached up and unbuttoned his shirt, pulling off the undershirt beneath it. He knew how it looked, the scar tissue bursting like a sun around the arc reactor, the lines of palladium poisoning running through his veins, turning them gray. It wasn’t as bad as it would get by the end, but it was… not a pretty sight. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said quietly, knowing exactly what Rhodey was thinking.
Rhodey’s hand on his ankle tightened even further. “No. I refuse to believe that.”
Tony shook his head. “JARVIS and I have gone through, calculated, and considered any and every element; we’ve looked at all the permutations of mixed elements. There aren’t existing elements or combinations thereof that would work with the reactor that won’t kill me just as quickly as the palladium. And I can’t take the reactor out because the surgery would almost undoubtedly kill me.” That wasn’t even going into the issues with his heart.
Rhodey shook his head. “No. No. Show me the math. Let me see the equations.”
Tony sighed. “Rhodey.”
“No.” Rhodey loosened his grip a little, but shifted so that Tony could avoid his gaze. “You aren’t dying on me, Tony.”
Tony looked away. “You remember how we met?”
Rhodey snorted, but there was only a vague vestige of the normal humor the memory brought. “Distinctly. You threw up all over my shoes. I was trying to figure out what idiot got their little brother drunk and then abandoned him.”
Tony felt his lips twitch into a smile. “Yeah, you were so pissed. You practically ripped my roommates into pieces when you figured out that they’d been enabling me and then dumped me because they thought it’d be funny.”
“They deserved a whole lot worse. You were fourteen.”
Tony waved his hand. “I’m grateful. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have you. And… and even when things were bad, I’ve always had you. I’m going to make you a suit. You won’t be Iron Man; you’ll be something better.” He swallowed, choking a little on his emotions. “You’ve always been something better.”
Rhodey closed his eyes, but the grief was still visible in the lines of his face. “You’re not dying. And making me a suit won’t distract me, and it won’t make things better, and it’s not in any way, shape, or form worth it. You’re not dying, Tony.”
“Rhodey, I’ve looked at all the data. There’s no possible—”
“Then do something impossible,” Rhodey snapped. “You’ve been doing impossible things since the moment I met you. Don’t tell me you’re out of miracles.”
“Rhodey.”
Rhodey opened his eyes again; his eyes were bright with pain. Tony had never wanted to hurt Rhodey. This was why he’d never wanted to tell.
“Do something impossible, Tony,” Rhodey told him, desperate and pleading and yet there was a stark, undoubting belief in Rhodey’s eyes, as though he really did believe that Tony could pull off the impossible.
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Make it work that way.”
Tony swallowed, focusing on the screen again where a bunch of y-wings were trying to take on the death star. “Maybe… maybe this will be better.”
Thoughts of ‘big man in a suit of armor’, the Mandarin, Sokovia, Ultron, ‘I’m not the one who needs to watch their back’, Siberia, Titan. “I’ll give the company to Pepper, give you a suit, set up a couple of foundations, some science scholarships. Finish getting the Expo back up. Remind people to believe. Remind people that the future is good.”
If he was gone, Thor could still take the nuke through the wormhole. If he was gone than there would be no Ultron. If he was gone then the Avengers wouldn’t fall apart at the Accords. If he was gone then Rhodey wouldn’t fall.
He’d do some research about AIM. He’d make sure that someone knew about the danger they posed. He’d leave information about the infinity stones at the New York Sanctum—or whatever that place was called—with whoever was in charge there.
“We both know… we both know I’m not a very good person. That…. That maybe—”
Maybe this was karma. Maybe this was what he deserved. Maybe things would be better without him.
Rhodey moved closer, hand grasping at Tony’s shoulder, tight and unyielding, forcing Tony to look away from Luke Skywalker’s run on the death star. “Tony, don’t die on me.”
For a long moment Tony could do nothing but stare at Rhodey, his brother, his best friend, his stability. He saw the desperation in Rhodey’s eyes that Tony had only seen a few times. When he was found in the desert, when he was in the hospital bed next to Rhodey’s after Siberia, when he’d landed back on earth after Titan.
Tony closed his eyes. He shouldn’t have told Rhodey, promise be damned. Because Rhodey was always going to ask Tony to live; Tony should have known that. Rhodey would never just sit back and let Tony die. And now that Rhodey had asked… He couldn’t die on Rhodey when there was a way for him to live.
“Okay,” he whispered, nodding slightly. “Me and JARVIS will figure it out.” He tried to smile. “We’ll figure out the impossible.”
On the tv screen, a galaxy far, far away was a step closer to being saved.
Tony could only pray that his own universe got that lucky.