Chapter Text
Tony opened his eyes. All he saw was a pale orange that went on forever. Two inches of water gently lapped against his sides. It was all he could hear.
Tony slowly sat up, his hands digging into the soft sand that seemed to make up the foundation of this place. He could feel each grain that pressed into his skin. He had no idea where he was. The last thing he remembered was Pepper, Rhodey, and the kid. A million thoughts ran through his mind but none of them fully surfaced for him to consider.
Tony moved to a cross-legged position. His brow furrowed in faint confusion.
He had died.
Tony looked at his right hand. No armour, no stones. What he did have was a scarred arm, the skin burned, covered in raised lines that travelled along his forearm, and likely up to his chest, to where the arc reactor had once been. It had burned, when he used the stones, fire in his veins that moved closer to his heart, killing nerves, the lack of feeling in his arm heralding his oncoming death.
They had won. Morgan and Pepper were safe; Peter was back from the dust. That was what mattered.
There was no pain now. He didn’t feel any pain, not even that ever-present ache in his sternum from where the arc reactor had been. Climbing to his feet, Tony slowly spun around, taking in his surroundings. There was nothing except an infinite horizon.
Was this the afterlife?
He hadn’t thought about what happened after death for a long time. He couldn’t, not when he had spent the last fifteen years throwing his life on the line. He certainly thought there would be nothing. It was the only thing that made sense. Tony had never been afraid of death, of punishment; he had been afraid of failing those who were with him. Those who would follow in his footsteps.
Was this… nothingness his reward for defeating Thanos? Conscious and alone for eternity. He snorted to himself. He at least deserved a jacuzzi for his aching back. Not that it ached anymore. On the bright side, since standing, he had dried off instantly.
“Hey, Tony.”
Tony spun around, his hand raised, even though there was no arc blaster there. There hadn’t been anyone behind him when he had just looked a few seconds ago. There hadn’t been anything.
And yet, Natasha stood there. Smiling brightly and with her head cocked to the side. “You did it,” she said. “You stopped Thanos.” She didn’t look any different from when he had seen her last. Ombre hair and a certain quality of sadness in her eyes.
Tony stared blankly at her. Her smile was tinged with the sadness that had been on it for years, ever since the Snap. “Nat?”
“The one and only.” She put her hands on her hips. “I didn’t think you would die. I hoped you wouldn’t,” Natasha chided.
The side of his mouth twitched. “I think I could say the same.” Tony licked his lips. “But we did it. We stopped him.” A small flare of sadness arose inside him; it seemed like it had happened mere minutes ago but it felt it had been centuries. He felt numb. “Where are we? Are we dead?”
“There’s some debate on the subject of where we are, but the general consensus is that we’re dead. I, personally, think we’re trapped in some remnant of the Infinity Stones.
Tony’s ears perked up. “Debate? Who?” There was still no one around except the two of them.
She held out her hand, halfway between them. For some reason, he knew that she couldn’t grab him, couldn’t touch him. He knew he needed to reach out. There was something about this place that had etched unspoken rules into his very existence.
Tony took her hand, his fingers intertwining with Natasha’s.
Reality shifted. A slight ripple ran through the air and a Torii-like building appeared behind Nat. Three silhouettes stood around it.
He recognized two of them. The last one, he had only ever heard of from Nebula.
Tony gave Vision a half-hearted wave. At least he had his whole head intact. “What’s going on? Why is Loki here?” he asked, turning back to Natasha.
Natasha shrugged. “I don’t know. I was alone here for a while until someone named Ronan the Accuser passed through. Then, there was no one until Loki.” She looked in the direction of the three people behind her. ”Everyone else showed up pretty quick, and then nothing until you.”
Tony had been watching Loki out of the corner of his eye. For a god of chaos, he looked disinterested and morose. Static. Thor had told them that Loki had bargained the Tesseract for Thor’s life, but Tony had difficulty believing him.
“Has it been tense between you and him?” There was no question as to who he was talking about.
“Not really. I told him about our plan to undo the Snap. A bit confusing since it hadn’t happened at the time. He was curious about the time travel.” She flipped her hair to the side. “There was another who passed through, called the Collector, but he was just that. Passing through.”
Tony’s brows knit together as he put it together. “Everyone here died because of the Infinity Stones.”
Natasha nodded. “Killed by them or for them.”
Tony cocked his head to the left. “Did it get really crowded after the Snap?” The scientist in him reared its little head.
Natasha quirked her lips. “I don’t think they were really dead. They just ceased to exist.”
“How do you figure that out?”
“I didn’t. That’s what Vision guessed.” She looped her arm through his. “Come on, time to say hello.”
Tony walked arm in arm with Natasha. A part of him said he should be afraid. Nebula had spoken Gamora’s skill as a warrior and her penchant for beating up arrogant men. And, of course, Loki had thrown him out of a window after choking him.
Walking closer, the water splashed up and gave them a light misting. He felt pretty comfortable knowing Vision would be more than willing to protect him. He tried to block out the crushing memory of seeing Vision’s body on the table, the hole in his head, the greyness of his body.
The final death of his beloved Jarvis.
Tony clenched his right hand. That should have also hurt, but it didn’t.
Morgan. Pepper. Peter. They were safe. That was all that mattered.
They stepped under the awning, which was pretty much the same underneath as it was outside, but with shade. There was no defining lightsource to be seen.
“Vision.” Tony nodded to him and leaned up against the wall. He looked at Gamora, who watched him with a hunter’s eye, and Loki, who had turned to watch the horizon as if Tony wasn’t important enough for his attention. And maybe he wasn’t.
“So, can we get out of here and get home?”
Loki let out a snort, deigning to look his way. “There’s no leaving. There’s no going back. If we could, don’t you think we would have?”
“How now, brown cow, I would like to think that now that I’m here, we could get going. I’m known for getting out of sticky situations…” His voice trailed off. Death wasn’t a sticky situation. It was death. It was final.
Vision floated towards Tony, the tips of his toes dragging through the water, creating small waves in his wake. “I wish it was so simple, but those of us who have been here for five years have sought ways to leave, but there is simply nothing here.” He waved a hand over the water and an image of Wanda appeared, looking battleworn. “We can see life outside. We have been able to see what has been happening. We have watched your progress, but we cannot interact.”
Tony crossed his arms. “Interesting” He glanced at Gamora; she hadn’t said anything yet. “Do you have any insight?”
“No.” Her response brooked no further comments.
Tony frowned, “So, you saw everything that was happening?”
Natasha shrugged. “Time moves oddly in here, but yes, we saw a lot of what has been happening. There wasn’t too much to see outside of the important pieces as the stones were assembled.”
They stood in silence, the other four clearly used to it. Each seemed to have their own place here, where they would look out into infinity. Seemed boring, in Tony’s humble opinion.
But Tony was silent, too. His usually hyperactive mind was quiet, focusing on only what was in front of him. There was no technology here unless he opened Vision, which he would not do. There was no way for Tony to help here. Loki had magic, but if he hadn’t left yet, Tony doubted it was possible.
He didn’t know how long they stood there in silence; it could have been five minutes or five years.
His mind was blank. He thought of nothing. He said nothing. He merely stared into the softly lapping water. Death was strange.
“Don’t look so down, kiddos!” came a cheerful voice. There was the sound of hands clapping together, and the sky changed from orange to blue. An old man with a mustache and sweater vest now stood in front. “Welcome to the soul stone!”
Gamora, Loki, and Natasha immediately shifted positions, from resting to alert.
Vision floated forward to stand next to Tony, who was touched Vision decided to be his bodyguard. At least, that’s what Tony assumed. Maybe Vision would pick him up and dunk him on the old man. They were dead, after all.
“And you are?” Tony asked.
“Oh, I have a lot of names. Some people call me the Creator, but I don’t like to think I’m God. Pfft.” He threw his arms out cheerfully. Where this place had been muted, and quiet, this man was anything but. “I have an opportunity for you folks!”
Gamora tilted her head; she looked interested but wary, given the narrowing of her eyes. It wasn’t every day you were offered something in the afterlife. Or whatever this was. “Opportunity?” she asked.
“What kind?” Loki said, looking at his fingernails and attempting to look nonchalant. Tony felt his mind wandering away from the issue at hand and began to wonder if Loki would ever go to seed as Thor had, but Loki didn’t seem the type to get PTSD; he seemed to be the cause of it. He had certainly caused Tony’s.
The man smiled widely, making the laugh lines around his mouth deepen. “You five are pretty special, some of my favourites, and you each did something important in saving the universe.”
Gamora's face twisted between a grimace of rage and pain. “My father throwing me off a cliff did not help save the universe.”
The man raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Things will come to pass, good things and bad things, but in order to thwart him, he needed to do the Snap.” The old man snapped his fingers, and the five of them held back a flinch. “You all went through so much, to have death as your reward, and that’s not fair, is it?”
None of them said anything. Each and every death here hadn’t been fair in the least, but they weren’t going to admit it, not to someone who very well might be a god of some sort. A god who looked like somebody’s lost grandfather.
“Well, kiddos, I want to give you an option.”
Natasha pursed her lips. “Which is?”
“There’s a world out there just like your own, except all of you are dead.”
Loki scoffed and made a clawing motion with two of his fingers. “I believe that is called 'our world.'”
How did Loki even know what those were? Tony shook his head, trying to ignore the oddness of it.
The man chuckled, and the orange light glinted on his aviators. “How right you are, Loki, but this one is a bit different.” He paused, taking them all in with a smile like they were his pride and joy. “In this one, Tony Stark died when a missile hit his car in Afghanistan, and because of this, the Vision was never created, Natasha died from being burned from the inside, and Loki got the worst clobberin’ of his life.”
Gamora circled the man, her eyes travelling him up and down, from his loafers to his red sweater vest. “And I?”
“Died saving Nebula from Ego.”
Gamora had come to a full circle and stopped behind Tony. “Ah.”
The old man smiled sadly. “And now Nebula’s spiraling in misery, on the run from Thanos, and afraid of the Guardians. Things are different, yet the same in this world. They will need help to stop Thanos there as well. But they won’t have you.”
Tony raised his index finger. “Well, hold on. Why would we want to go there? We’re all dead. We’ve fought our good fight. Why do we have to go and clean up their—” Tony stopped himself.
Arguing against helping people was not something he did. This place made him crave rest. The thought of going back made fear bloom inside of him. It was strange.
“Tony, my boy, I know you inside and out. Nothing will stop you from helping people; you’re a good man, and even death can’t keep you from saving the universe... I like to think the same of all of you.” The man looked at Loki with a soft smile. “Even our reluctant hero. There’s nothing wrong with laying back and watching a good play, but action calls to you as well.”
The four of them shared a look, which Loki ignored as he stared the man down. The old man just smiled benignly back at Loki like he was his mischievous son.
“There are only two options I can offer you kiddos: you get to save another world—hopefully without dying this time—or you can move on to whatever afterlife exists out there for you.”
Tony briefly wondered what kind of afterlife existed for gods, aliens, assassins, robots, and former arms dealers. Outside of Vision, everyone here had blood on their hands, and who knew if the good they had done outweighed their past crimes? The implication was that an afterlife did, in fact, exist.
Gamora walked forward without looking at any of them. “I will go. I refuse to let my father win in any world.”
Vision floated next to Gamora. “I was unable to help our world, not even with my death. I would like a second chance.” Tony figured he would also want to live more than three years.
Tony looked at Natasha. She was smiling, and it wasn’t one of those half smiles she did, the ones that said, “I know more than you do, and you’re an idiot for thinking you know more than me.” No, this was genuine; it was genuine and excited. She walked into the line with the others, her assent was clear.
Natasha was made for second chances. Although by his count, this was her fourth or fifth.
Tony bit his lip. Did he want to go? There was the chance, though, that Pepper was there. He could see her again. It wouldn’t be his Pepper, but it would be someone who knew him. Who understood him. Who could put up with him at the very least. He could go into a new world and help the people there, prevent the ones he loved from dying from Thanos. He could still make a difference somewhere, still help. He could do even better than he had in his world, keep more alive. They knew more than they had before, meaning they had the upper hand on Thanos. They could win without the loss of life. Without loss of their lives.
The man was right—he couldn’t just stop. He walked up and stood beside Natasha. “I’ll go.”
Five pairs of eyes turned to Loki, who rolled his own. “Fine.”
The old man laughed and smiled. “’Excelsior!”
Tony had a brief second of thought where he wondered where they would be going. Maybe they would be in space, on a different planet, which would be cool, since it’d be easier to fit in at least. He wondered if they would have clothes on.
The man clapped his hands and the world went white.