light years ahead of me

hi!  my name is reyes ( 22, she/they ).  i’m a full-time graphic designer, a lover of dogs, video games, and tony stark.  welcome to my blog :>

chinese-american, mixed canon + canon divergent TONY STARK / IRON MAN. 

comic, mcu, avengers assemble, and marvel’s avengers game influence, including personal headcanon.

links:

carrd (rules, dossier, verses).

being asian american.

not canon-compliant.

face claim edits.

memes.

headcanons.

character study.

can also be found on getwebbed, rensovia

one hand continues to cling to tony’s while the other shakily but very gently cards through his hair. he’s waited for this, for tony to wake up, for him to be coherent enough for them to know exactly what the extent of the damage was. it’s not like anyone has ever been through this before, no one knows exactly what the stones put his body through, no one could say for sure if he’d wake up at all. and steve had hated it, loathed every second of the unknown, not having answers for their son. he doesn’t love this, either, seeing husband reduced to this state, but god he’s proud of him. proud to be able to call this man his, proud of all tony had accomplished and all the lives he’s saved. tony’s saved them all. and like the self-sacrificial asshole he is, he’s left them wondering if they still get to have him after the fact.

heart aches at the rough sound of tony’s voice, but nothing has sounded half as wonderful since tony’s eyes had slipped closed on the battlefield. god knows it beats the constant hum and beeps of the machines around them. he hopes it’s over. he hopes this can be it for them, that they can step away and just live their own life together without people coming to their front door asking for their help again. tony deserves that much now. tony deserves to be able to relax back into a quiet, domestic life. it’ll be littered with appointments and therapies of all kinds now, he knows recovery is going to be a long and arduous process, but he’ll be there. every step of the way, he’ll be there for his husband and his son. he won’t let them down.

“yeah, honey, it’s over. you did it. you saved us. everyone’s safe.”

it’s a relief to know tony remembers what happened, still has his memories, still knows who he is, who james is; they hadn’t been sure how much his brain had been affected. steve hadn’t been prepared for what that conversation would have looked like between his husband nor his son.

How long have I been asleep? It’s now the only thought that begins to occupy his mind, foggy and unclear of the details because he’s been out of it. Just…out. A maze is what best describes his current state of thinking and memory recall, trying to reach out for the memories and the feelings he’s had since the last time he’d been a conscious, functioning human being. Perhaps this is asking too much of his own body after having been knocked out for what could’ve been years. Oh god, I sure hope it hasn’t been years. That would mean James has grown up, and that Steve has gotten older. His love for both still blossoms in his chest, the two best things in his life (ever), but his heart aches at the very concept and imagery of his family growing, moving, living without him.

It should click that it’s all over. Steve tells reassures him it is…but why does it still feel like he’s still fighting a battle?

A different battle, he supposes. The kind that doesn’t just leave you. The ones that’ll sit on his shoulders for the rest of his life. Tony swallows, and his throat feels dry, uncomfortable. He wants to sit up, fingers tightening around Steve’s.

“i’ve been using it for research. it’s been instrumental in catching me up so far. it’s also more convenient to work on than shuffling through mountains of paper files. really neat, havin’ all that information at your fingertips. no wonder everyone’s glued to their screens these days.”

despite being phrased like a common complaint, it’s really a statement of amazement; technology had come so far in what felt like such little time and continued to steamroll on day by day. because of people like tony, who were driven towards creating a brighter future, one that was tangled up in all these advancements now in a way that couldn’t be undone. news traveled faster, there were endless means of communication, new forms of entertainment— it really did make sense that everyone had their noses in a screen with so much offered to them on a daily basis. will it probably concern him once it all becomes more familiar to him and he realizes it’s not always a healthy thing, as great as it is? yeah, but that’s for future him to worry about. for now he’ll just be impressed by the good it can do; though he’ll always stand by relying on your own skill, hard work, and intuition over technology. steve figures he gets a pass for being old fashioned, considering he’s the very definition of the term.

“i’ll look into some of the local bakeries. you’re welcome to join me when i go visit them, of course. if you have some time in your schedule when i do.”

“Glad you’re catchin’ up, then.” Tony supposes he can’t blame a man from the past who would want to reject so much of what would’ve just been the future of him. No sane human response is to instantaneously accept everything thrown at your face when you’re not even from the same era, and, well...he’s actually mildly surprised Steve has been making the proactive effort. A part of him wants to offer his help if Steve’ll ever need it, and another part of him wants to joke about Steve’s ability to adapt to this present-time, but he knows all too well that Steve isn’t just any regular guy.

But, even Tony knows that though technology is incredible, that he’ll always champion it, there are its unintended consequences. Kids being glued to screen these days isn’t something brag-worthy, and lord, who knows what else is going on out there? Tony tries, though, tries to use his ideas, plans, inventions, to be able to build a brighter future. And even if he isn’t able to accomplish it all, he can only hope he paves a way for the next generation to carry it forward. A single man can’t achieve everything, he’s come to slowly learn that, and Tony’s already achieved a lot. He’s done things no one else can say they’ve ever done, like a literal diversion of a nuclear bomb into space. Seriously, what the fuck, right?

     “Tony, it’s not that I don’t trust your cooking skills, it’s that I don’t trust your cooking skills,” Natasha deadpans at him. Actually, it’s more that water boils at a significantly lower temperature that high up in the air, which is why most food that’s served on planes — private or otherwise — rely on reheating pre-prepared foods rather than making it themselves. Assembly isn’t an issue, but it’s harder to make sure that illness-causing bacteria, for example, are properly eliminated.

     “Just get your eye-candy butt on the plane and get us where we need to go, and I’ll be happy. It’s been a long damn time since I took a break.” She says that as if she’s 1) taking the break for her own benefit, 2) not using the trip to meet up with Yelena and swap intel, and 3) taking her tablet with her to work in the evenings. She is going to try to steal some of Tony’s tech away from him, but truthfully, she doesn’t expect him to do much different either.

“Ouch.” He feigns being offended, knowing full-well of his general incapability of being a man in the kitchen atop of any other potential reasons. “Coulda said that a little nicer, you know? Wouldn’t have hurt to be kind.” He’s only kidding—Tony’s barely one to hold back his own tongue some days, there’s no reason that he’ll actually expect Nat to hold hers. The last time he cooked on a jet kitchen hadn’t turned out well, let alone him in a normal kitchen on ground level.

He’d always known that Stark was private, that he preferred to keep a lot of things close to the vest. Given everything that he’d learned he didn’t blame him one bit for that. Especially given what society tended to do to people like that. But that didn’t mean that his friend needed to keep him at arms length. He’d never judged Stark, he’d never look at him any differently. If anything he would support him, help him however he could, but never would he judge. But looking at his friend Steve knew that it was pointless to keep fighting him about this. Both of them would dig their heels in and neither of them would get anywhere. It had happened in the past and it would happen again. Giving in was the only way that he’d keep things from escalating and while he hated it, he was ready to keep things from getting worse.

All that aside, he was still going to help his friend. Everyone knew he struggled with the bottle and it seemed like tonight was one of the nights where he fell back into old habits. Not that he could blame him. Everything seemed to be a struggle and everyone seemed to be handling it differently. A part of him wished there was something more he could do. Each time he reached out he seemed to be rebuffed, and there were only so many times he could reach out before he gave up. And that was the last thing Steve wanted to do; give up on Stark. He’d just have to be patient and hope that his friend would eventually let him in. If not, they were going to keep butting heads and he knew where that had led to. He was determined to keep that from happening again, but if Stark wasn’t going to talk to him, if he wasn’t going to let him in, he wasn’t certain he had any other choice. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

The world had already seen them fight; they definitely didn’t need to see the two of them fight again. Not over something that could’ve been solved through communication.

He didn’t know what was going to come from this. For all his support, for all his words, he had no idea just what would come from this. And that bothered him more than anything. He was a tactician, he preferred plans and knowing just how things might play out. But this wasn’t anything like that and it bothered him. But Stark wasn’t one of his plans and he couldn’t really expect his friend to fit into them like one. And helping people was something he thought he could do. But the more he looked at his friend the more Steve started to wonder if he could help him. The  voice in his head reminded him he couldn’t help those who didn’t want it and no matter how much he thought Stark might need it, he was starting to think that he might not want it.

And if that ended up being the case he just might start to see himself as a bit of a failure. What would the world think of the former Captain America helping everyone but one of his closes friends? He didn’t want to think about it. Not when he needed to deal with Stark.

“No, I don’t know what it’s like to constantly doubt and wonder if your place in the world is what you think it is,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. Again, he shouldn’t be antagonising him like this, but sometimes his mouth got the better of him.

Sighing, he shoved everything else aside and focused on helping his friend. Neither of them were comfortable in this situation and the more he antagonised him the worse things were going to get. And they were already bad enough. All he needed to do was get Stark to the bathroom and the rest should be relatively easy. Or at least he hoped it would be. Nothing to this point had been so he wasn’t too certain anything else would be.

“You sure you’ll be okay here?” He didn’t want to leave him there in case something happened, but he also knew that distance might actually help the two of them. Getting the shower ready would at least give him time to think, and it would give Stark time to deal with the awkwardness that had settled over them. But the voice in his head kept telling him that Stark could end up getting sick or choking or something worse, and that leaving him was the worst thing he could do. Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t it seemed. No, Steve was certain he could leave Stark there and get everything ready without worrying about the other. “Don’t worry, I’ll go get the hot water running so it’s ready for you.” It felt like he was making this worse but what other choice did he have?

Nodding to the other, he moved off to the shower and turned on the hot water. Closing his eyes, he didn’t think things could actually get worse. Instead, he shoved it all aside and gave the other some time to himself. Their past was anything but good and he knew his presence there wasn’t making things any better. And he couldn’t leave him. Not in his current state. Even if he wanted to he couldn’t. If something happened to him he would never forgive himself. After a few long moments, he looked out the door to see if Stark had moved or if he was still sitting there.

There’s an itch he wants to scratch, one that’s telling him to run away, or you know, maybe jump out the window. This is a thought he has out of complete and utter confidence, only because he knows the suit will come save him in time. The suit’s capable of many things, but two stand out spectacularly well in the moment: it’ll either save him or be the death of him. One is more pleasant than the other, though he wonders if the latter could take all this pain and misery away. Tony is, by all accounts, a stubborn man who’s driven by the things that he knows. Everything is scientific, mathematical, functional, quantified in a way that makes the world spin. Religion is something he does not subscribe to as much as he does in the logistics, but he’s not a man of no faith. He has his fair share of thoughts, only to make him wonder: are my downfalls the result of a previous life? There’s surely an answer somewhere that he cannot reach, but he’s far too drunk to think about spiritualism at the moment.

What he does know is that his gut is churning uncomfortably, and he has the slightest inkling of doubt in regards to bending over the toilet in time. There’s the garbage he can get to, but he holds it down, like he’s trying to stop the dam from collapsing. “Please, for the love of God, don’t say that,” he throws back and tilts his own head up toward the ceiling, lips opening to inhale a deep breath. “That’s not what I needed to hear.” Tony knows that the world doesn’t center around him, and he’s perfectly fine with that. He also knows that Steve has gone through much in his own time, and he doesn’t blame the guy for having any bitter thoughts of his own, but now is not the time to rehash those thoughts. He will never understand Steve’s upbringing, he will never understand what it’s like to wake up in a new era after believing he’d been sleeping for two seconds. Tony is not naïve enough to compare himself to other people because he’s been down that road more than once and it’s never once ended nicely. Steve disappears toward the washroom, thank fuck, and Tony stares at the block of light that travels out of the washroom. He’s engulfed in the darkness as he always is, staring up toward the light that appears easy, yet almost somehow always out of reach.

Instead of wallowing any further, he rubs his palms over his thighs, and with a swing of momentum that may or may not end up with him projective vomiting, pushes himself up onto two feet.  He hasn’t taken a step yet. The sound of running water is enough to get him moving. Sober him up, change, get himself to bed...

There’s something about this dynamic between them that has him teetering on the edge of always saying the wrong thing. It seems to be instinctual these days, wanting to insult somebody with an illusion of lies that’ll get them to leave him alone; problem is, he knows it’s ineffective at best and genuinely harmful at worse. Tony is not the type of person to tear someone down in order to get to the top himself—he built this tower, this company, with his own two hands and his brain—aside from the ineffective use of wording that is meant to push people away from this, from him. No one will understand it, nor does he expect anyone to. His problems are of his own, a burden to carry alone in this world. When people like Steve have more than enough on their own plate to take care of, the last they need is some billionaire’s daddy issues or self-deprecation sitting at their feet begging to be taken care of.

How is it that, in a world of seven billion people, I can feel so alone?

Tony has never been one that’s cared about Valentine’s Day, mostly because he sees through the bullshit of it just being a day for people to spend money on expensive flowers, chocolates, and dinners, when everything will be cheaper the next day. Perhaps for a man with so much money he wouldn’t care, but he does for his own sake, mostly because he sees no purpose in celebrating love when it can be, well, celebrated everyday. It doesn’t mean that he shits on whoever does choose to celebrate, because frankly, it’s their own prerogative, and maybe they do celebrate love everyday and just want to do something a little more special on February fourteenth. Either way, Tony doesn’t care.

It’s been a long couple of weeks anyway, time slipping between his fingers between work, work, and more work. He does enjoy it this way for the most part—it keeps him busy and distracted. He’d much rather there be time used than time wasted away, laying around doing absolutely nothing if it can’t be helped. Spending time with Steve doesn’t count as time wasted away, at least not under Tony’s personal definition of things, but they haven’t even had time to spare between the both of them beyond debriefings and going to bed (assuming Tony actually sleeps that night). Which, is the very reason that he’s now passed out on the couch in his lab, blanket strewn half over the top of the couch and just barely covering Tony’s legs and feet. He doesn’t hear Steve come down, open the door, or leave the flowers on the table.

Life is, unfortunately, never permanent. It’s a blessing though, to be able to make an impact in their lives since they won’t be around forever. Though Steve has aged just as gracefully, he does still have the super-soldier serum running through his veins, and Tony is uncertain as to how long Steve will actually live due to this. He is, however, just a man himself, which means that his time will come to an end soon enough. Between all the chronic pain his body has suffered ever since becoming Iron Man, to the way old age has stiffened his body up further, bone density worse than it’s ever been and therefore more vulnerable to accidents, it means that Tony is getting old. He’s no longer in his prime, which is, on all accounts, an unfortunate thought for himself, but hey, he looks good, he’s still with Steve, and their son already their own life. The world’s safety is also in good hands, so between the two of them, Tony is happy.

It’s still nearly a foreign feeling, that, of being happy. He’s felt this way for a while now, and though he still has the days where he struggles to get out of bed, let alone pry his eyes open to face the world another day, he’s grateful he has a lifelong partner at his side. They’ve had their bumps together, and it’d never been a conventional relationship given their careers at the time, but they sure made it work, and Tony is, frankly, relieved. Everything that they’ve gone through hasn’t been for naught.

The war is raging on. A war that he did not want to be a part of, a war that he did not encourage to start. His kingdom has been thriving in peace ever since he became King after his parents’ deaths, and no, he has not instigated any form of rivalry before between any of the other kingdoms. People believe he’s unworthy to rule, that he’s too young, too naïve, and perhaps they’re right; Tony knows that he isn’t the perfect ruler, that he’s young and unaccomplished in the grand scheme of things, but people assume that he’s asked for this life. He never has, and he never will, because it’s a lifestyle that does not suit him and his…romantic interests. There has never been a fair lady in all the lands that he’s wanted to court, no matter how many he has met during fancy dinners from visiting allies. His love is his downfall, because he loves a man, and he loves the man who runs the royal knights and guards, someone who, according to tradition, is not fit for a King.

Tony has never been one to go by the rulebook, and that’s something that hasn’t been appreciated by many, particularly within the council. They think he’s a failure, that he holds no dignity and loyalty to the Crown that he’s supposed to serve as, and maybe, just maybe, they’re right.

But it’s a war, and wars don’t just end without reason. Wars mean that the knights have to leave, that they must set up camp and defend their kingdom. It means Steve has to go, because he is the commander, and Tony has to stay within the confines of the castle to remain safe. The thought makes him want to revolt, because prior to his parents’ death, Steve had been his personal guard. He’d been the one standing outside his chambers at night, the one who always made sure he was okay. Instead, he now had to send him off for something that Tony doesn’t even wish to be apart of, that he doesn’t believe in.

We’ll see each other again.

     The world will end before we get actual peace and quiet, she thinks, but she’s not going to contradict him. Instead she hums noncommittally. “I can’t promise that it’ll be as grand as your estate —” It is, and she’s looking forward to his expression. “— but it is fairly calm at the beach-side, and there’s a staff that will be happy to bring you fruit mocktails and baked goods and iced coffee. Plus, if you get away from the private beach, there’s plenty of eye candy anyway.”

     She shoves at him affectionately, a gentle enough push considering what she’s capable of,  and pulls up coordinates. “I’ll let you fly us out there, Mr. Rich and Magnanimous. I hardly think that SHIELD would approve of me appropriating a Quinjet for this, even if it’s a good cause.”

“All I needed to hear was iced coffee.” In any shape or form, coffee is the love of his life, next to cheeseburgers and a nice, hot bowl of noodles. He’s quite in love with his food, but he supposes that’s a larger question about his attachment to nostalgia and culture than it is anything, but to be fair, isn’t that what food is about? “No need. I am the eye candy, Nat,” he says, almost in a sing-song voice, far too confident in himself. A little too confident.

he’s not being kept in a particularly nice place, but these are villains, and bad guys don’t have the decency of providing amenities to their captives. prisoners in jail cells are better equipped than this. tony’s wrists are shackled, separate from each other, surely to keep him from finding a way to pickpocket out of them, and his shoulders and upper arms are beginning to burn with the how long he’s been held up like this. he’s not standing, however, just knelt down on cold concrete. dirty, too. there isn’t much light beyond the arc reactor, and the dim faint of yellow from far down the hall, but even he can tell there’s dry blood splattered across the walls that surround him. there’s no windows, and he’s quite convinced they’re underground. tony has escaped captivity once to be reborn a new man with better intentions, but this is scenario that is a bit out of his hands.

head bowed, he breathes, slow and steady, before grimacing with the thought that he may have a couple of bruised ribs. he didn’t get taken without a fight, but he’s not entirely invincible as much as some people like to say he is. iron man is just the can, and tony stark is the human piloting the suit.

it’s quiet around these parts. there’s very faint voices in the distance, surely the guards, who are holding conversation. they aren’t coming, tony. c’mon. he bites his tongue and prays that he won’t die, alone and out of his suit, in some dingy underground facility. “no. they’re—he’s—coming,” he mumbles to himself. his voice, even as a whisper, sounds too loud for the cell he’s being held in.

not everyone has a family, but tony does. the avengers are his family (pepper, happy, and rhodey, too), but he even knows that how he feels is not a representation of how the others do. and, yes, he may be in love with steve, but that doesn’t mean steve is going to save him. (GOD, HOW HE WISHES STEVE WILL SAVE HIM.) the uncertainty of being saved runs like a deep wound, a fear of abandonment and neglect from previous traumas that still haunt him to this day to his chagrin. he closes his eyes and hopes that, maybe the next time he wakes up, he won’t be alone.

it’s a bang, the clatter of metal and gunshots, bullet shells echoing as they hit the floor. tony’s alert, and fucking starving and dehydrated, but he’s convinced it’s them, that it’s steve and nat, maybe even clint somewhere there and bruce keeping watch outside—