1Putting an end to something - saying goodbye - was not one of Tony's many talents. He'd faster get into a racecar and speed away forever than sit down and shake someone's hand for the last time, get a parting hug.
In his dreams, his racecar was red. It wasn't fast enough to leave everyone behind.
Sitting in the front seat, Pepper offered him a familiar expressive smile, linking hands with him over the gear stick. Tony didn't take his gaze off her even as he noted his father's presence in the backseat. The blue in her eyes was the brightest spot in the whole wide universe.
"The greater good has rarely outweighed my own self-interest," Howard advised him, grave and hurtful. Pepper was the most beautiful woman Tony had ever met.
"I'm your family," she begged, hurtful in an entirely different way. "Please, Tony. You're all I have."
Tony's eyes tightened. His car flashed through a blinding tunnel, and in the shadows, Pepper had switched places with Howard.
"What comes first?" his father asked from the passenger seat. "You're better than me. Haven't you known, your whole life?"
"I have," Pepper said, and if this wasn't a dream, Tony was sure it would have sounded bitter.
He shifted gears, the car crashed into a wall, and Tony was still trapped.
"I promise," Peter swore, looming above him with red eyes; Tony thought he'd seen this kid tear up more than anyone else in his life, his toddler included. "I promise I'll be better."
But the brick house held steady, Spider-Man wasn't there; Tony was burning, and couldn't say anything back.
How did you get out of the wormhole?
No regular healthy person obsessed over their own mortality, but Tony was neither healthy nor regular. He found himself routinely staring at the sky and imagining it as a shield – whether it was a shield for his home or for the sight of a hostile army, he didn't know. Tony pictured a scar too; a mocking reminder of the door the Avengers just barely slammed shut.
It took him a bit, but Tony finally figured out it wasn't his mortality he was frantic about.
What did you see up there? (You always do something about it.)
Tony's reaction was to do what he was good at – he took all his worries, fears, predictions and hopes, dumped them in an impressive file, and labelled it Even Dead I'm The Hero.
Lethal. That's what EDITH was, Tony knew, poring over the specs he wrote practically overnight. The one thing he had never wanted to make again. After all these years of fighting, Tony still hadn't figured out a way to build a non-lethal weapon. So he shoved the file into the darkest corner of his mind, encrypted the AI with every key known to man, and pretended he could forget about it.
(He didn't purge it.)
When are the monsters coming? Where are they going?
Years later, Tony met the greatest living non-lethal weapon in the world, and finally understood it was the type of thing that couldn't be built.
Tony's hand on the wheel always caused disasters – Ultron and Peter Parker were two sides of the same coin. He'd made a mistake, with Ultron – his recurring Achilles' heel, believing he could control that kind of power. But Tony learned how to fix it – he just needed to hand over the wheel to someone he could trust more than he trusted himself. Sometimes, he wondered if the kid knew what Tony saw, when he looked at Spider-Man.
Upstairs, Pepper was waiting on him, in the mood to spend newly-engaged time together. Tony pulled up EDITH's file, cleaned it up, and linked it to the biometrics collected by the Spider-Man suit – and no one else's.
Tony spent weeks wallowing in his grief over Peter, before Happy Hogan's name made its way into his mind. It hadn't even occurred to him that the kid could have taken Happy with him, just that Happy would have wanted to know about Peter's fate.
He stood in place for an hour, afterwards, listening to the disconnected number dial tone on repeat, and told himself a friend like Happy had deserved better than a friend like Tony.
The first time Tony made Rhodey laugh himself to tears, it was Tony's eighteenth birthday and he was dressed in formal-picture-taking attire. It wasn't even the clothes that got to him, it was mostly the hair – Tony had been made to part and style it according to his mother's rules. The one time he tried to stick his fingers in it, Maria had given him a piercing, disapproving look, and Tony had sheepishly patted it back into place.
"This alone makes the trip worth it."
"And here I thought you only came for my considerable wealth and lavish lifestyle," Tony retorted glibly, but Rhodey was too busy giggling every time he laid eyes on him to shoot back with anything witty.
Tony's birthday lunch was being used as an excuse for some fundraiser, or SI function, or some discrete meeting for some business of Howard's or another. So, as soon as he felt he could get away with it, he grabbed Rhodey and snuck out the front door.
"Wouldn't it make your life easier to just ask permission?" Rhodey asked, exasperated, but still right on Tony's heel. "I know it's more fun this way, but you don't actually have to give your mother a heart attack every time you disappear without telling her."
"It's easier to ignore my dad saying 'no' if I never actually hear him say it," Tony explained sagely.
Rhodey rolled his eyes, but protested no further. Tony changed into jeans and leather, and commandeered one of his father's jets for an impromptu trip to London, where Rhodey wasn't allowed to nag him about his lack of drinking age anymore. He nagged anyway, but Tony got him drunk too, and what Rhodey failed to notice while inebriated couldn't hurt him.
"How come," Rhodey slurred out, sprawled out in one of the expensive leather seats, "you assume Mr. Stark would say no to this? It's your birthday."
"You really need to work on your tolerance, this is pathetic," Tony declared, trying to poke his best friend's forehead and nearly jabbing a finger into his right eye instead. "Would you say yes?"
"No, but that's because you're an idiot."
"Exactly."
"So, your argument is that he should say no?"
"You're not drunk enough," Tony said, nose scrunching up, and poured him another glass. "What if I don't care what I should do?"
"What if you didn't base your every action on the exact opposite of what he'd want you to do?"
"Hey, I'm a bad son, he's a bad father, it's a whole cycle of shame. If it ain't broke, dot dot dot."
Rhodey belched and tried to remember what he had been talking about. "You're an idiot," he told Tony, because he didn't remember if he'd pointed it out, and he wanted to make sure it didn't go unsaid.
"I'm just following his example," Tony shrugged, reaching for another bottle. "If I say right, he says left. If I say left, he says right."
"Funny how you cherry-pick which examples to follow. Have you tried saying nothing at all?"
"And deprive him of the opportunity to complain about me? Heavens forbid, his head would burst."
In the early morning, on their way back, Tony decided to peer pressure the pilot into drinking with them. Rhodey was too out of it to stop it, the pilot was too new and intimidated by Tony's last name, and the jet had a very bumpy landing. It ended with Tony skidding out of his seat and Rhodey remaining in his, snoring stoically.
Tony shook him awake. Rhodey blinked up at him. "Uh-oh," he said groggily, "I left you unsupervised."
Howard yelled at them for an hour. Maria intervened with the pretext that the two of them needed sleep, and Tony avoided her eyes, nudging Rhodey forward. They both stumbled their way into Tony's bed, fully dressed, and Tony stole the entire comforter to make a burrito out of himself. Rhodey rolled him off the bed for it, and only then did Tony agree to share. The sun made it look like it was already noon outside, when they finally settled.
"When you have a kid, I hope he straight-up crashes your jet," Rhodey said, apparently not yet willing to go to sleep like a normal hungover person. He sounded like he was grinning, which meant he was still at least a little bit inebriated. "I'm pretty sure that's how cosmic retribution works."
Tony poked his head from under the sheets, opened his eyes with great effort, and gave Rhodey a look of pure conviction. "Only one solution – never have kids. Ever."
"I'm gonna watch you settle down one day. You wait."
"You could watch me settle down tomorrow. Between eleven pm and three am, nightly. Just never with the same person twice."
"You're disgusting. It's gonna take a saint to put up with you and your kid. He's gonna be as much of a pain in the ass as you."
"That'll be a problem. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in saints," Tony pointed out, mockingly morose.
"For now," Rhodey mumbled, eyes drooping with sleep. "I promise to stick around. Just to rub your face in it when you turn out to be wrong."
There was a short moment of silence before Tony's reply came. Rhodey was probably already asleep.
"That's what you've always been here for, Rhodes."
Rhodey was the simplest, fullest relationship Tony had. Steve was the most complex, volatile relationship Tony had. But their hands felt the same – a military man's hold, rough and determined and full of meaningful purpose. Warm and human, clammy from the weather.
"You trust me?" Tony asked, because it mattered too much.
"I do."
The year was two-thousand-and-twenty-three, the sun beat down on perfectly parted blonde hair, and Tony asked Steve Rogers to trust him. The year was two-thousand-and-twelve, the sun beat down on scruffy hair streaked in shades of gray, and he did.
"Pepper-"
"Ms. Potts." It was so sharp and cutting, Tony shut up immediately. She didn't even look contrite, and he thought just maybe he'd found his religion.
"Ms. Potts," Tony tested, and grinned when he could make it satisfyingly lewd. Pepper rolled her eyes, and he grinned harder. "Just promise me, you ever get the urge to quit, let me know, and I will shamelessly double your salary."
Pepper's eyebrows rose slowly. "You're not a very good negotiator, are you?"
"Ghastly," he admitted easily. "But I think I'd like to keep you."
Pepper thought for a second, expression strangely inscrutable. "You anticipate having to fight for that?"
Alarm bells went off in Tony's head, and he took a step back immediately. "No psychoanalysis on the first date, please." Damage control had never been his forte.
"That's quite an informative answer, Mr. Stark," Pepper murmured, visibly containing a smile. "Stop referring to dates in a professional setting and I'll take the job."
Tony relaxed. "Done deal. I'll find a different setting for- non-professional matters."
Pepper stood elegantly, brushed the entirety of her long hair behind her shoulder, and didn't even bother to give him a reproachful look. She didn't linger at the door, but Tony was left trying to stare through it several minutes after it slid shut, behind the click of her heels.
I love you, Tony almost said, except it came out like thank you. For a moment, his father's hug was only warm, instead of late, pointless, frozen in time, and practically meaningless.
"What is this?" Nebula asked, Tony's nanoparticle container looking heavy and light in her hands.
"I dunno anymore," he said truthfully. "I used to call it my heart, but that one's new."
"Your heart still beats." she said, a hand firm and coldly disinterested on his chest. Tony would've felt offended, were he any younger. "How many hearts does a man have?"
"I don't know. As many as he's allowed, I suppose."
Tony didn't think he was making much sense; there were plenty basic necessities he was being deprived of at the current moment. But Nebula looked at him like she understood, and quietly fixed the arc reactor back in its place.
I just finally know what I have to do.
"Where are you going?" Morgan asked, shrieking and giggling and chasing after Tony. He was getting old, and she was determined to stay young forever; one of these days, Tony thought, she might just outrun him.
I have to protect the one thing I can't live without.
I shouldn't be alive. (I used to have nothing. And then I got this- family.)
"Where am I going?" Tony wondered, burning the whole wide universe into his skin, his flesh, his soul.
Unless it was for a reason. (Nothing lasts forever.)
Reasons ran out faster than anyone cared to ponder. Tony knocked on a car window, once, and asked his mother for the keys.
"Where are we going?" Maria asked, and Tony replied, "Somewhere loud and peaceful."
It was Tony's dream again. All his questions, all his unfinished stories, the riddles keeping him chained – every single one just another glimpse of a boundless life he lived without quite realizing it.
"Daddy," Morgan said, "you can't stay here forever."
Tony looked around. Another one of his escape rooms, holograms teasing every memory he'd ever had just outside the corner of his eye. It was brighter, here, under the encompassing blue glow.
"It's not my place anymore," he agreed, just as Spider-Man swung above him.
This time, when Tony looked in the mirror, a red and gold suit of armor with anger in its every sharpened line stared back. This time, there was a crowd of people behind him – a crowd of people each counting on Tony to find an exit. This time, he raised an arm – a sleek metal repulsor - Tony's arm, Iron Man's gauntlet – and fired into the mirror himself.
The way out was always hidden behind the shattered pieces of his reflection – the only door in his trap – and now, Tony could see through it and beyond.
I am Iron Man.
