Stark

"Stop frowning, I’m here,” Tony chided softly, then nodded in approval at the smile. “Better. Much better. You use more muscles when you smile, you know?”

Inhaling Stephen’s scent - the ever present smell of tea of books, even here, Tony sighed in a rare moment of contentment. This moment, right here, right now ... this was perfection. Happiness draped around him, warm and comforting, glowing within his very veins. 

He placed a kiss to Stephen’s mouth -- what he had intended as a quick one turned into something longer and more lingering.

“This and that,” he said when they parted. “Mapping the city. Trying to figure out why flight isn’t working -- still not sure about that one. Best guess is that it’s the reality stone interfering. Trying to figure out how to get out of this. Building cars -- or at least, ATVs.”

“What about you?” he asked, moving to sit beside Stephen. “I hope you haven’t been working too hard.”

Tony wasn’t avoiding Steve Rogers. It was just that Genosha was large -- very large -- and Tony was... busy.

Sort of, anyway. Genosha was lacking in the technology department and Tony was busy working on that, as well as constructing all terrain vehicles for use outside the city, but he was mostly waiting for materials to come in, and that led to a lot of down time. He missed the entire infrastructure he’d built up for Stark Industries. 

One of the side effects of that down time was that he was spending more time working out, which was how he managed to run into - almost quite literally - Steve Rogers at Nina Park. He’d been jogging along, not really paying attention as to where he was going, when he rounded a corner and spotted someone coming straight at him out of the corner of his eye. Pivoting on one foot, he managed to cleanly avoid them, and was just busy congratulating himself on his reflexes when he slipped--

--and went straight into the pond.

Oh

s h i t

"No, I’m not tasty. Really. Come on.” 

Tony stared at the spitty-poison-dino as it stared back at him. “I know you’re intelligent, and also probably aggressive, but I’m not actually here to pick a fight with you,” Tony continued. "I remember you as an egg. Heck, I saved you as an egg--”

The dinosaur chirped and shrilled at him, then flapped its crest. Tony leapt backwards. “Hey, you cut that out! No backtalking! Quill? Where the hell are you? Quill?!”

He glanced around for his adopted older son, who was the person that he’d been trying to find in the first place. “QUILL, call your son off--”

He paused, then eyed Kevin Bacon Jr doubtfully. “Hey, that technically makes you my grandkid. Be nice to your ... I’m not old enough to be a grandpa. QUILL?!!”

what have you done?

wanda choked back a sob, wishing, for just a moment, that she could really be THE SCARLET WITCH that everyone thought she was and not just wanda maximoff, young and scared and out of control and so stupid. she wished the reality she’d created could have stuck, wished that the fighting had stopped so she could go back to pretending to be human, raising the babies she would never have in a palace run by a pleased father and happy siblings. wanda was the human child. she hungered for that now.

“it is my fault,” she said, her heart pounding harder and faster in her chest, because it was true. she’d said the words. why did you do that? she didn’t have to say them, she knew she shouldn’t have said them, she knew the CONSEQUENCES and yet she’d muttered them anyway, let them fall from her lips tasting bitter and cold.

the world would be safer without her in it. the world would be happier if she never existed at all.

come on, kid. follow my voice.

               c o m e     h o m e .

                                                                          h o m e .

he hadn’t said it out loud – but did he know? could he possibly know? wanda’s heart ached and her mind strained against her – you don’t have a home, but even as the thought pushed its way inside her she thought about the compound. she did remember the pancakes and the way they laughed about it. she remembered how normal it had been, the way she dreamt families were like, the way they were in books and magazines even in sokovia. she remembered the way tony stark felt like a person rather than a name on a bomb, and how she almost, almost believed that maybe he saw her in the same way. 

WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION, she thought, WHO MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM EVERYONE ELSE.

he was fighting to reach her – risking everything to get closer, with his shield up. for the briefest of moments, she was convinced that he was doing it to attack – but that didn’t feel right. his voice, the way his mind was working – he just… wanted to help.

“i’m so sorry,” wanda whispered, her voice long lost in the chaos of her magic, her own voice ringing in her heads, three words that destroyed so many –

wanda could at least save this one life. she took so many… and she thought about the pancakes. the smell of syrup and butter and jam and home, the sound of laughter, the feeling of warmth – and there’d been no pietro; there, he’d died and it wasn’t because of her, he wasn’t crumpled on the ground at her feet, dead eyes staring up at her because it had been her fault – it was another life, a softer one –

wanda maximoff just wanted to go home.

she clung to the memory of exploding pancakes harder than she’d clung to anything before – and she clenched her fists. her power stopped, freezing, glowing red energy surrounding them in stagnation, and the world went silent. wanda braced herself and squeezed her eyes shut, imagined the faces of her found family smiling back at her, let out a controlled breath from between her lips. she opened her eyes, gazing out at the graveyard that had once been genosha, staring at IRON MAN, wishing desperately that she was capable of this. “i’m sorry, stark,” she said, just in case, “for everything.”

there were so many mistakes to make up for. so little that sorry could cover.

but even still…

TONY STARK WAS RIGHT.

she could get a handle of this. she could stop it. she was the scarlet witch and these powers were hers.

she opened her palms and released her magic – but instead of exploding outwards, it hurled itself back into her – red and bright and red – and she spread her arms wide like she was welcoming them back into herself with a gracious and friendly hug. but her eyes were red, her teeth clenched as she drew it all towards herself, feet lifting gently a few inches off the battle-ridden ground – and when it was done she fell.

her body collapsed forward and she caught herself on the ground, hands unfeeling to the dirt and debris beneath her. slowly, wanda lifted her head, looking out at the desicated battlefield where stark was still alive.

She was in his head. He knew that as soon as he met her gaze, and part of him flinched despite himself. A thread unraveled, tugging on others -- space. aliens. Ultron. Fear threatened to strangle him, harsh and unyielding (Thor’s fingers around his throat, lifting him off the ground like he was nothing--

No.

He fought the fear aside and re-focused on the girl in front of him. This - this he knew well: the anger, the rage, the helplessness... the guilt. How many times had he walked the same road, stared into the same abyss, wished upon the same falling meteor that time could be rewritten, that reality could be undone, that he could simply -- cease

“Wanda,” he called out to her, held out a hand, his heart breaking all over again for her. “Wanda -- no; you never had anything to apologise for.”

And then -- she opened her hands. He winced within his armour, grit his teeth and waited for the blast... 

... and waited.

And waited.

The power fell away, the readouts dropping to nothing, and instead, she fell, a puppet with her strings cut, and he was painfully reminded of the way he’d fallen, a lifetime ago; dropping from space in a suit rendered powerless and useless, eyes closed and ready for the end.

He lunged forward, but he was too late to grab her (oh, just another way in which everything he did was too little, too late) but he bit his lip and dropped to his knees beside her, the armour peeling away. 

“Hey,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder, and smiling, meeting her gaze. “You did it. You won. You’re amazing, Wanda. Absolutely amazing.” 

He had so many things he wanted to say, but the moment stretched between them like spun glass, and he was terrified that dropping something as clumsy as mere words into the web would shatter this fragile peace between them. “Here,” he said instead, opening his arms. “May I?” and he moved to pull her into a hug. 

peter missed new york. 

it wasn’t that he didn’t like genosha – it was a beautiful city, he would admit that, but it wasn’t the same as new york. new york would, after all, always be his home. there was also the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to visit his uncle anymore – or his parents, for that matter – and that struck him hard. he tried his best to not think of it.

“hey, sandwich, you wanna go for a walk?” peter asked his dog as he jumped to his feet, deciding he probably shouldn’t wallow around the apartment all day. he didn’t wait for a response – though, he knew it would be a rapidly wagging tail and a happy bark – as he grabbed the leash and got ready to leave.

the park was nice. peaceful. he put his headphones in, allowing his spotify to just shuffle all his songs, humming along to whatever came on. almost completely disconnected from the world as he quickly got lost in thought. 

in fact, he got so lost that he didn’t even notice tony trying to strike up a conversation with him. he barely noticed the older man at first at all – nearly walking straight into him. “shit!” he muttered, jumping back as his senses warned him of the incoming person, yanking his headphones out. “uh – what’d you say?” he tilted his head to the side slightly while sandwich barked happily at tony, rubbing his head against his leg to greet him. “i was sort’ve lost in thought and didn’t catch what you said. sorry, tony,” he smiled sheepishly. 

Tony was more of a cat person, but he could never say no to a dog, especially one as cute as Sandwich. “Hey boy!” he called out, crouching down to ruffle the pup’s fur, cuddling him as he grinned up at the kid that he was starting to think of as his son. “Kids, once they grow up, they stop listening to their old man.” 

Sitting on the ground, he continued ruffling Sandwich as the dog bounded excitedly around him. “I was saying -- how’re you enjoying Genosha?” 

He kept his tone light, but his gaze was sharp. “By the way... do you sort of remember a certain... dream ... that happened? Just before we got here?”

“I agree it is most definitely peaceful.”

Mantis answers. She hadn’t noticed Tony before, but they haven’t had much time together since their time in the Soul Stone but she was well aware that he was spending time with Stephen. And that was enough for her to know he was okay and eventually they would meet again when their paths crossed. 

And here they are now.

Mantis says with a smile hearing the whole possibility of their ‘reality bubble collapsing’ and being ‘hit by a car’. She, however, chooses not to comment on either of those as she understands that they do not need to be. Even though she can attest to not like cars as citizens in the city were not very kind to her when crossing streets in them so she is certainly happy to be away from them. “The people here are much more …open as well.” She says this as she has not gotten any odd looks, some are surprised at first but then will openly communicate with her with smiles and a sort of acknowledgment she had not gotten back in New York from anyone other than the few she communed with. 

“Though the experience of coming here has put me off swimming, I was hoping my first time on one of Earth’s beaches would be far more ‘fun’.” She says but immediately shakes that off and goes back to the conversation at hand. “Perhaps I will revisit that experience,” She says looking a little warily at the water and remembering how hard it was to stay afloat without panicking. “At a later date though.” She says turning to Tony with a nervous smile on her face.

“Mantis!” Tony hadn’t seen Mantis in a while, and he was glad to see that she was fine -- or as fine as any of them could be, in the circumstances. Admittedly, it was a lot more fine than he’d expected. 

“It’s nice, isn’t it” he said. “It’s almost like they did us a favour.” Though -- as nice as he found the place, he couldn’t help but miss New York, and the Sanctum, his bots. 

“What’s wrong with swimming?” he asked, pushing his bad memories concerning water to the back of his mind. “Beaches are fun if you go with the right people. You should round up Quill and the others, we could hit up the beach. It doesn’t have to involve swimming.”

He glanced around, still thinking of New York. “You know, I never asked - did you have any family? Anyone that you’re close to? Did you get them back after the reverse snap?”

to say carol was not amused would be an understatement. she had been beyond frustrated to the fact that she was now stuck on some random island with no means of escape instead of being back in space. it had taken her a little bit of time to adapt to the fact that this was her life for the time being.

which found the woman lying on the grass in the middle of nina park with her leather jacket bunched up underneath of her head. the view from being her aviator sunglasses became darker as she realised that it wasn’t just from the sun, “do you mind moving?” her words with no bite but no amusement in it either. “or is there something i can help you with before i blast you?” 

 Tony had a pretty good memory - especially for faces - though it was something that he wouldn’t admit to just anyone. Or really, to anyone. It was easier to keep up the impression of being the guy who couldn’t remember what he ate for breakfast ... even if that was often true, but not the point.

Point was, the lady’s face was familiar, and Tony paused as he tried to recall where he might have seen it before. Not someone he’d seen recently, for sure. Huh, this mystery was going to annoy him unless he cracked it-- 

“Oh, sorry,” he said, when she called him out. “Sorry, I’m just trying to recall - have we met? I’m Tony.” He gave her a smile.

after attending to wanda and ensuring she was stable - even going so far as to have a private conversation with her within the astral realm, the sorcerer had found a strong bond with her. but it had come at a price, not his friendship with her, no that was always a key something that he loved to have with his fellow magic-user, but the amount of magic he’d expended over the last week.

wong would have known how bad it was getting for stephen, he’d used his own energy fields, something that most sorcerers under the craft of the mystic arts knew not to do - it would kill them if they used too much, and yet….

sighing, he sat at the steps of the capital building, leaning against them and enjoying the peace and quiet that had been afforded to him. closing his eyes, he sensed the approach of someone near by, raising his brow he continued to wait patiently for a response or a verbal approach before finally speaking; “yes? what is it?”

Tony had been wandering the city, familiarising himself with it and quietly assembling a map on his systems while Stephen did whatever wizard-y things he needed to do. Truth to be told, Tony wouldn’t ordinarily have left his fiancé’s side, but Erik Lehnsherr had bee hovering and Tony had gotten the feeling that he was ... unwelcome.

So he’d gone for a walk instead, and it had given him the chance to sort out the mishmash of feelings from that... dream dimension or nightmare realm or whateverhaveyou. 

Unfortunately, his wanderings hadn’t really cleared anything up in his mind, apart from the general sense of relief that it hadn’t been real. And that he was still very afraid of the possibility of Stephen losing his mind and going off on a magic bender.

And so when he’d finally found his partner again, he found himself just watching him, studying the familiar lines of his face, enjoying the sight of seeing him at peace -- or some semblance of it. 

“Is that any way to greet your  fiancé?” he said, teasing lightly, before bending down to capture his face in his hands, running his thumbs over his cheekbones. “Hi.”

when lorna first learned she was the heir to some island intended for the safety of mutants, she hardly believed it. she laughed and said no, that whatever it was, it couldn’t have been true because something like that always came with a price. she had learned that the hard way – and now here they were. everyone was, in theory, safe on this island. mutants, enhanced, and even human allies alike. but at what cost? they couldn’t leave. they were trapped again as they had been in the soul stone months ago. that wasn’t erik’s fault – or anyone’s, only a ill step of fate.

she stepped away from the now bustling and crowded city, away from the prying eyes of locals that knew who she was and others that were now finding out. lorna had decided that after she ensured dawn was cared for and watched, that she’d need quiet and distance to test a few theories.

her powers had been growing, or perhaps it was just that she was exercising them more now than she ever had before. she’d used them to hold up again thanos in the soul stone, help crush the gauntlet made of alien metal, took down a building after pulling a bunker out from underneath, and most recently – she felt the metallic elements in the earth’s surface enough to shift the ground. she was always sensitive to metal and the electromagnetic spectrum, but to feel the specific elements mixed in the ground was new. 

lorna stood at the border of the city and ridgeback mountains, curious if she could recreate the moment it’d happened or if her powers were only situationally based. she held up her hands, swirls of green magnetic energy flowing around her fingers as she tried to search out the elements again. “come on, come on –” she muttered to herself, caught off guard as she could feel someone approaching and immediately let go of whatever grip she had over it. “shit – sorry. i was just.. working on something.”

“Whoa.” 

It wasn’t directed at him, but Tony felt the tug of power on the casing around his arc reactor, the metal responding to Lorna’s powers. 

Mental note, be sure to remove all ferrous material in the casing, given the opportunity and a proper lab. 

Actually, probably remove all metal. Carbon nanofibres for everyone.

“It’s just me,” he said, holding up his hands and grinning. “Why are you all the way out here, Lorna? Apart from trying to tug on my heart strings.” 

Stepping closer, he glanced at her and down at the ground, his mind working quickly. “Trying out something new with your powers? Or trying to create another metal city?”

Tony had been to many places - visited every continent on the planet and even gone to space, but he’d never set foot in a city of metal before.

And he had to say - he really quite liked it. Erik’s city was cleaner than New York, and the towering skyscrapers lent a distinctly high tech feel to it, even if it sometimes almost felt like something out of an evil dictator’s scrapbook. But so far, Erik had been kind to them. Really, the only person he’d actually threatened to yeet off the island was him.

Tony really didn’t understand why Erik disliked him. It probably had something to do with being Iron Man and not having a lot of iron on him.

Either way, he found himself enjoying a relaxing stroll by the water, killing time while waiting for Stephen to finish whatever complex ritual he was working on. Bored, he opted to strike up conversation with the nearest passerby. “It’s nice, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing at the sunset. “Quiet, peaceful. Easy to forget that we’re trapped in a reality bubble that could collapse at any time. But then again, you could get hit by a car crossing the road, so I suppose we live dangerously all the time.” He smiled. “How’re you finding Genosha?”

mary jane was still reeling over the events of the last couple days and honestly she had no idea how to feel. new york was her home, it always had been for as long as she could remember, and the fact she had no idea when she was going to be back there made her wonder how long she’d have to call this island her home. it wasn’t all bad, she had to admit. 

she was living with karolina, and her other friends were close by which made things a lot easier than being alone. mj knew what being alone was, and honestly after the nightmare place, and the real life hell they went through just to get here she wasn’t sure she’d survive being alone with her own thoughts. 

she figured the best way to get to know the new city and it’s inhabitants was to walk. she did her best to use major landmarks to know where she was going, and which way she needed to use to go back, though if she was being honest that wasn’t exactly working. she never would admit it but if new york wasn’t a grid she would have been lost everyday of her life. 

as she turned what she hoped was a new corner she found herself right in front of a store front she’d walked past at least once already, if not twice. sighing she noticed someone standing not to far away and decided now was as good a time as any to ask for help. “hi, sorry, i don’t mean to bother but can you tell me where i might be?”

"So, we’re on an island called Genosha; outside of this city, it’s full of places trying to kill us; and it’s run by this guy called Magneto who’s a really powerful mutant that we shouldn’t piss off. That’s the basics,” Tony said, ticking the points off his fingers. “Other important information is that the island is currently trapped in a reality bubble so we can’t leave.”

He smiled. “That about covers it, but if you want to know where you can stay or get a bite, I’d be happy to show you around.” Pausing, he thought back on her question and realised that he might have completely misinterpreted it. “Actually, come to think of it, you might already have known all of that stuff I told you about. Sorry about that. If you were asking where in this city you are -- here, I think I can be a bit more helpful.”

Tapping his not-watch-that-looked-like-a-watch, he projected up a holographic map of the area. “Blinking red dot is us. Where were you going?”

@itsnanotech

WANDA, YOU KNOW HOW THIS ENDS.

don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it don’tsayitdon’tsayitdon’tsayitdon’tsayit ––

“daddy…”

DON’TSAYITDON’TSAYITDON’TSAYIT ––

“NO MORE MUTANTS.”

an explosive white light and screams but none of it touched her because none of it would change anything, only hurt ––

the light dimmed and color slowly came back to the world, and as the dust began to settle, there was one person standing – one living man in a sea of dust and missing bodies. his face was unmistakable. TONY STARK. something flashed in her mind – a memory, another reality – hers. he hated her. maybe he had a right to. she’d fucked up. but worse still was that he feared her. vision had all but made that clear – to tony stark, THE SCARLET WITCH was nothing but a nuclear bomb waiting to go off.

and had she not? the carnage and rot and destruction around her was worse than any nuclear bomb. she’d destroyed them. all of them.

“get away!” she screamed, lifting her two shaking hands and clutching them to her chest. pietro was still limp in front of her, dead and it was her fault. she wanted so badly to believe that it was because of ERIK, her father, that all of this was because of him, but NONE OF IT would have happened if she could’ve just kept it together.

KEEP IT TOGETHER. it’s a dream. IT ISN’T REAL.

“you don’t understand! he destroyed us! because of him my children died! they were just babies!” she screamed, tears streaking down her face in an uncontrollable grief. she felt like her heart was being twisted by her own hands and her chest ached, her features twisting in horror. “i just wanted to end the fighting… i wanted to end the war, don’t you see? but it never ends!”

there was fear in her voice now, instead of rage and anger – because she knew she couldn’t control it. she could never control it. not before, and not now.

her powers surrounding her hands, glowing and pulsing red. “no, no, no, not again,” she whispered desperately but the energy only grew, and she couldn’t stop it. no one had ever taught her. not in this universe. not stephen. not erik. no one to hang on to her during her mental collapse. nothing to remind her what it was like to just be wanda maximoff and not the scarlet witch. all she was, was unstable, a monster, who destroyed everything over and over.

“leave! i don’t –– i don’t want to hurt you too ––  !!”

Where was he?

This wasn’t Earth. This wasn’t even Titan. This was a wasteland, this was hell, and the screams - oh, the screams...

Red shot through his vision then slowly faded, and there it was - the stuff of his nightmares, bodies everywhere. His friends, strewn out dead in front of him, all staring accusingly. You could have done more. You could have done more--

All except one. This was ... different. 

He glanced up, recognition dawning on him. Wanda. Had she done this? Was she responsible for the carnage, or was she just a survivor, like him? Then she starting screaming at him, the words making his eyes widen. Children? Babies? “Wanda, what have you done?” he whispered, his voice torn with horror. 

But a moment later, her words stabbed him right in the chest. I wanted to end the war. A heartwrenching, gut twisting echo of the same words that he’d said to Cap, another lifetime ago - that was what they were all fighting for. To end the war. To end the bloodshed. To go home.

He was frozen in indecision. Options sprawled out before him -- two roads diverged in a yellow wood, his mind sing-songed -- don the suit and take Wanda down? Try and talk her out of it? Walk away? Run? He stood no chance against her. He didn’t need to be a genius to calculate those odds. If he was smart, he would cut his losses and run.

But she started going to pieces, and the power around her surged, and her voice broke as she yelled at him to leave, and his heart shattered.

The suit wrapped around him in an instant as he flung his shields up to maximum, hoping against hope that the technology that had withstood a direct blast from the power stone would hold out for a while. Long enough for him to do what he had to do.

Which was run. And run he did - not away, as every instinct was yelling at him to do, but towards her, fighting through the magic tearing at him. “Wanda,” he said. “Wanda!”

God. She was so young. Young, cursed with a terrible burden, and crying --

-- he never stood a chance. “Listen to me, this isn’t your fault. You can control it! You’re strong enough, you’re brave enough, you’re stubborn enough.” 

Warnings flew up on his HUD as the energy levels around him spiked, FRIDAY warning him of the high possibility of failure of his shields. “Mute,” he muttered, pressing on with every step, trying to reach her in every way that counted. 

Distract her, his brain said, and he dove for the first thing that came to mind. 

“Hey. Hey, focus on me for a second. Remember the time we tried to have a cook out at the Compound?” He’d been thoroughly awful at it. He was utterly cursed where it came to cooking. “And how I managed to blow up pancakes? Wasn’t it you who saved breakfast and saved the day?” 

   Come on, kid. Follow my voice.

            Come home. 

a shaky breath escapes peter’s lips as he looks around at the all too familiar scene of the ruin of the planet titan. his blood runs cold as he quickly realizes nothing good can come of this. “shit…” he mutters as he begins to make his way through everything to find a way out of here, but he stops dead in his tracks. in the place where drax, mantis and peter quill had disappeared all those months ago stood harry, mj and gwen. before he could even react properly, they all start to disappear. they turn to dust. “no…” he mumbles, tears beginning to fall as he reaches out to them, but it’s too late because they’re gone. 

turning around on his heel, he quickly spots his aunt and runs to her, only for the exact same thing to happen. she disappears before his eyes. “peter…” a familiar voice calls out to him. his heart skips a beat and he turns to face tony stark, who stumbles around for a few seconds just like he had before falling into peter’s arms. “m-mr. stark, y-y-you’re gonna be okay,” he stammers. “i’m sorry.” tony says before he disappears in peter’s arms, leaving peter there on the ground, sobbing. 

after a few minutes of just crying, he slowly gets to his feet. opening a door to some wrecked structure on titan, he walks through, only for his surroundings to change entirely. he isn’t sure where he is now, or what nightmare he’s walked into, before he spots tony. he sighs in relief and runs to him, wrapping him up in a hug. “t-tony!” he stammered. “y-you’re okay…”

@itsnanotech

Titan?

Oh god, he’d never left. He knew it. All of that about finding the stone, finding Peter and Stephen again, going home -- it had all been blood-loss induced hallucination. 

He was still here. He’d never left.

Lying on the cold hard ground-- 

“Shut up, Taylor Swift,” he choked out. 

Dust swirled around him, like the dust that everyone had turned into, like he was finally, blessedly turning into as well. He stared at his hands, relief sweeping through him. It was cowardly, but he wasn’t going to be left alone, he was--

--“Pete?!” he stared, wide-eyed and horrified, as Peter ran over to him, catching him as his legs started to go. No. No, NO this was wrong. Peter had dusted. Peter was gone--

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed out, because his mind understood what his heart was slow to acknowledge - that he’d not only failed to save the kid, he’d done worse. 

He was going to die and leave him behind on Titan. Alone. Stranded. Facing the thing that Tony himself had once feared the most. ‘Once’ -- because now he was discovering that that old fear was dwarfed by something far more awful -- the horrible reality unfolding in front of his eyes. “Pete-- you gotta--”

Words drifted away.

He opened his eyes, and he was on Earth, somehow. A futuristic version of it, apparently - by his guess, probably ten years, or possibly twenty. He wasn’t sure how this had happened, but maybe Thanos had sent him through time instead of killing him? Maybe that was what Stephen had done with the time stone?

Confused, he brushed himself off and looked around. If he was back on Earth, then -- what had happened to Peter? What had happened to his--

You’re not qualified to call him ‘son’.

He cringed at the mental voice, then paused when he heard a familiar voice yell at him. “Pete?” 

A moment later, Peter barreled into him, and Tony swept him up into a hug, yanking him close and refusing to let him go. “Shit. Are you okay? How did you get back to Earth? I’m sorry - I’m so sorry for leaving you behind. God, Peter.”

@itsnanotech

The spell… something had gone wrong, something dark, something that he wasn’t able to control. It scared him, downright nearly sent the Sorcerer into a panic – where was Wong? Where was Wanda? Both of them had been with him, the three of them pushing a spell, that was admittedly treacherous and highly volatile to begin with, to try to save the world. Had they failed?  Had they instead ended the world? God, he hoped not, after all, he’d never be able to forgive himself for it.

But then it hit him, his hands began to shake harder than they had in a long time, the pain soaring back through as if the car accident had just happened. Crying out in pain, Stephen nearly bent over, desperately holding his hands out before him as he steadied himself on his knees. “To-Tony!” He yelled, pushing himself to his feet, stumbling as he did so and charging his way through the empty Sanctum.

Stopping just short of the entrance to the tea room, he spotted his fiancé, standing in the center of the room and looking upon him with a fixed state of fear and betrayal. “Tony?” he asked, his tone growing more concerned as he stepped forward. “What’s going on? Are you al-” but before he could finish the sentence, Tony spat up dark, rich blood from his mouth and stared at him. A weight appeared in his hands, and with widened, fearful eyes, the Sorcerer looked down to see that he’d somehow conjured his magical blade and cut it right through Tony Stark.

“What? No, no–this isn’t… what!?“ dropping the blade, he lurched forward to catch Tony in his arms. “I’m sorry, I didn’t– I don’t know how, oh God, Tony please… I’m sorry.“

Tony was...

... was in the sanctum, apparently. He thought he’d been at the Compound, but the Compound was gone, wasn’t it? So of course he was at the sanctum. In the tea room, specifically. 

And Stephen--

Stephen was screaming.

Panic gripped him as he spun, yelling for his fiancé. He heard the sound of running footsteps before Stephen appeared, his eyes wild. Tony took a step forward, worried that he was hurt, when some instinct held him back.

There was blood on Stephen’s hands. 

It dripped off them, and Tony somehow knew that it wasn’t Stephen’s own blood. And the look in his eyes. 

“What have you done?” he whispered. “What--”

He was so busy staring at Stephen’s face that he completely missed looking at his hands. A moment later, pain seared through him and the taste of blood filled his mouth. It was weird (strange, a part of his mind cackled hysterically), because he was fairly certain that the blade had gone through his stomach not his lungs, but --

oh 

 g 

o 

d

The pain hit him and he doubled forward, and then Stephen pulled the blade out.

Blood went everywhere, and Stephen -- Stephen was smiling and smearing the blood over Tony’s face and Tony knew, he just knew that the thing he’d feared, the nightmare that lurked at the corner of his mind -- it had happened.

Stephen Strange, sorcerer supreme, had finally succumbed to the demons in his mind.

“Oh god, Steggy,” he choked out, as Stephen flashed back to sanity and apologised and all Tony could hear was ‘Help me, help me, Tony, --end this’

“I can’t--” he screamed, but Stephen was suffering and mad, insanity lighting those beautiful eyes and this was what absolute power did oh my god Stephen, I love you--

Power surged through his reactor, almost like a last, dying pulse, and the nanites moved. The unibeam cannon formed around his reactor--

Fired.

Cut a hole right through Stephen’s chest and all Tony could do was laugh and cry, hysteria and mental and physical agony the most awful of combinations in his veins. 

Shot through the heart-- and you’re to blame

You give love...

He fell to his knees and screamed. 

Steve immediately whipped his head around, staring at Tony with a mixture of horror and concern, he knew Tony, and he knew that when a thing like this, a thing that springs out high emotional responses, that his friend was going to react just in kind. Whirling his head back to where Tony was aiming, Steve swallowed before sucking in a breath, “he-hey-!” he yelled at the group, slowing to a start but eventually breaking into a run towards Tony all while waving his hands into the air to try to distract.

Now in a full-forced run, Steve concentrated at Tony and continued to dash at him, bending his head down a little and preparing his shoulders for impact. “Get outta here!” He yelled at the group as they turned their attention to what was about to look like a brawl. In hindsight, this would look bad, it would look like the Avengers were broken once more.

But lives needed to be saved, and he wasn’t just talking about the anti group.

There was no way Steve was going to let Tony carry the lives of people upon his shoulders, no matter how disagreeable and awful they were. When he smacked into Tony, he knocked the man over and tussled until he was on top and pinning him to the ground. “Tony, you can’t. You… can’t do this, we can arrest them, we can interrogate them, but if you kill them… how will that make us any better than what they are?”

His own gaze scanned Tony’s face, searching for recognition and understanding. “I know you want to kill them,  believe me, I want to too, but we can’t.” he whispered, sitting up and moving off of him, offering his hand to help him up. “Plus…. they’re filming this.” He tilted his head towards the cameras, placing his lips into a tight, thin line before meeting Tony’s gaze with a determinedly hardened one.

Tony was seeing red - literally, since his HUD was in attack mode and all the read-outs were glowing red. Something was screaming at him at the back of his mind to go for disabling shots and not straight to murder, do pass Go, do not go straight to jail--

--he was still fighting with himself when something crashed into him like a wrecking ball. 

“Fuck it, Miley Cyrus!” he screeched as he went flying, mentally registering that there was probably only one person who could tackle him with that much force when he was in full armour. Though if Captain fucking America thought that he could win against the Mark LII, he really had something coming. 

Instinct took over the moment Cap had him on the ground--

   nightmare images of the shield coming down

             and the twisted scream 

                       of metal and bone

--the arms on his suit transmuting to jet powered battering rams. Steve had shown him a glaring weakness in his previous suit designs, which was that at close quarters, he pretty much had one weapon, which was the all-or-nothing unibeam-to-the-face, which gave him very little choice when he was trying not to kill someone.

Fortunately, that design flaw had been corrected very quickly thereafter.

Clocking Steve with the punch that had made Thanos bleed, he only vaguely realised that Steve was sitting back and moving off him, but it was too late.

The battering ram connected with those too-perfect-teeth. Tony pulled his punch, which probably stopped him from shattering Steve’s entire jaw, but didn’t stop him from sending him flying.

“Shit,” he said, peeling out of his armour, his mind only just catching up with the words that the other had said. “Don’t fucking do that, Steve!” he yelled. “I wasn’t going to kill them!!”

“Yes… that is exactly what I thought-“ he admitted, ducking his head away in slight embarrassment. In hindsight, Stephen should have known better and should have considered all of the possibilities before pocketing the ring. “But yes, I’ll have you look it over and teach me everything later.”

It was almost as if he’d used the Time Stone to check the future when Tony’s reaction to the school being attacked played out exactly how he’d foreseen it. “Yes, it’s completely a wreck, there isn’t much left except for what was underground and even then, Tony, I’m sorry but I don’t believe that–” he stopped himself and sighed, “students and staff have been killed in the process, children.”

His heart actually ached for the lives that were lost - an anger that boiled beneath the surface for him as well. Waiting in patient silence, Stephen watched as Tony diverted some of his aid to help at Xavier’s. “I will send for her immediately.” He stated, mentally adding to his list of what he needed to do.

Ignoring his protests, Stephen continued to assess his ribs. “Yes, of course I can, I’m still a doctor, I learned those almost within the first month of me becoming a sorcerer,” his tone was flat almost annoyed, an attempt to hide his fear and worry. Standing straight to his full height, he tightened his jaw and stared his fiancé down. “Tony, I have an unlimited amount of energy to pull from, I can handle a small healing spell on you. So, stay still and let me do this, alright?”

Momentarily caught off-guard by the kiss, Stephen inhaled sharply before surging a spell through his fingertips and into Tony’s body, mentally casting the healing spell.

“Trust you to think the doctor-y thing.” Tony laughed and shook his head, before wincing when his ribs protested. The laughter quickly turned to raw emotional pain as Stephen mentioned children. “Those assholes,” he hissed. “Those fucking barbarians.” Scrubbing a hand over his face, he forced himself not to breathe too deeply. “I can’t get Charles -- he’s not responding to FRIDAY’s calls.” His face crumpled. 

“We need to get over there. They’ve disabled most of my Iron Legion.” He grit his teeth, mind already spinning with plans. “Genosha is a possible safe zone - the most ideal, I would think, since it’s not on any official maps and most people don’t know if it exists. Otherwise, I think I have classified Stark Industries facilities in Eastern Europe that might be able to be converted to safehouses in a hurry.”

Glancing up at Stephen, he shook his head. “All magic comes at a price, you said before. You don’t seriously expect me to believe that it’s unlimited. And even if it is unlimited, it’s got to cost something.”