st_arkintern | Ghost of Christmas Future

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Ghost of Christmas Future

"Mr. Stark?"

Peter stands at the edge of the bed that Tony shares with Thor. He wears the Iron Spider armor Tony made for him, the faint glint of the moon through the thin slit between either side of the curtain reflecting off the suit's dark colors.

Peter's hair is styled differently from the Peter here at the inn; it's longer, more wild, even floppy. School had grown more and more demanding as the end of his sophomore year approached and balancing school and his time as Spider-Man was difficult. He had promised May he'd maintain his grades as part of the Spider-Man Negotiations of 2017, but criminals didn't stop just because he had two papers to write by Friday, a quiz tomorrow, and a test next Tuesday.

Hair had been less of a priority. Peter couldn't put off his homework if he wanted to continue being Spider-Man; he couldn't put off his evening patrol if he wanted to protect Queens, either. There were no serious long-term consequences to not getting his hair cut (save for perhaps more bullying from Flash, who was prone to bullying him anyway). A haircut could wait until later.

Peter always thought there'd be more time later.

Tony doesn't stir. Peter presses his lips together -- a nervous habit acquired when he was still alive -- and draws a little closer. He resists the natural urge to place a hand on Tony's shoulder to wake him; he knows that his fingers will slip right through. Instead he repeats, this time a little louder:

"Mr. Stark?"

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Tony shook his head uselessly as if to ask what could be even left to witness on this hellscape. But he owed this much to Peter, no matter which Peter it was. He owed it to everyone--if for no other reason than to see what his failure bore.

"Alright." He steeled himself. "Alright."

"You know why I brought you here, right?" Peter asks quietly.

He doesn't wait for an answer.

"None of this has to happen for you or for me," he says. "There's so much time to change things. Even now, things are probably already changing."

This Peter can't be certain of it.

"Everybody needs to work together. And everybody needs to know what will work, what might work, and what won't work at all. I really think we can beat Thanos."

Tony forced himself to meet Peter's eyes, pained as he was to do it. "So there's hope." He didn't realize it, but he was holding his breath. "That when I get shunted off whenever the hotel decides...I can change things."

Peter keeps his gaze steady on Tony.

"If I didn't think there was hope, I wouldn't have visited you. I wouldn't have visited Peter, either."

Tony felt his heart sink at the mention of Peter--his Peter. He shut that emotion away. There would be time to deal with it later.

"Understood."

Peter presses his lips together.

"You okay?" He knows the answer's probably no, but Tony just needs to be okay enough.

Tony's face was a mask, as it so often was. "I'm here."

Peter turns away and the scene swings back into motion. Spider-Man helps Iron Man up as everyone on Titan gathers together.

"Something's happening," Mantis says, her eyes turning skyward.

Moments later, she turns to dust.

The same happens to Drax and to Quill and to Strange; the most any of them is able to manage is a few short words.

"Mr. Stark?"

It's not the ghost Peter speaking, but the real one.

"I don't feel so good."

Tony had no concept of what half of all life meant. The universe was far too infinite for even a genius of his caliber to grasp. When Thor finally confessed that Thanos had succeeded, Tony didn't even have a concept of what their deaths would look like. When he began hallucinating caskets floating in the sky shortly thereafter, he was certain one of the many was left for him. A still corpse to feed the earth.

But Thanos wasn't so kind. The once-living faded away into the breeze, leaving nothing but the memories.

Mr. Stark.

Tony's mask shattered at the sound of Peter's voice. Moving on pure instinct, Tony went to him, right as his other self caught the boy.

"Please." Tony begged, watching himself give the only real embrace he would have given the boy in his life if not for the Madonna Inn.

"I don't want to go. I don't want to go, sir, please. I don't want to go." Please, I don't want to go. I don't want to go."

The other Peter clutches Tony so tightly that when he falls back, he takes Tony down with him.

For a moment, the other Peter's eyes go skyward, then turn back towards Tony.

"I'm sorry," he says softly.

The other Peter dissolves into dust.

His other self made a desperate grab for what little remained of Peter, only to have it slip through his fingers. Tony slowly lowered to his knees, staring at the spot where the boy used to be. And he stared.

And he stared.

And he stared--as if he could will the particles that once composed Peter Parker to come back together.

Time stops on Titan again. Peter crouches down next to Tony.

"There's a chance that even if we eventually stop Thanos... this still might happen," he says softly. That was his whole reason for showing Tony; he's not sure he would have shown him otherwise. "You need to be ready for it because you're still going to have to keep moving forward. You can't just stop."

Tony looked towards Peter--the sole light to be found anywhere around him. He wanted to ask how the boy could live his death all over again and have the calm within him to build Tony himself back up after his utter failure.

Then, it truly sunk in. He lived. Peter didn't. Thanos might as well have carved him out with his own weapon and left him barren.

"Earth." Tony mechanically replied. "I need to--to see."

"Are you sure?" Peter asks. He had planned to take Tony there from the beginning, but now he wasn't so sure it was a good idea for him to see it on top of what he'd just seen on Titan. "It's not going to be any better."

Hesitation. And then, Tony heard his own words on replay.

We don't stop just because it gets scary. We don't stop just because it hurts.

He nodded. "I'm gonna see this through." Tony stared right into Peter's eyes, clinging to the hope that the boy had. "I will."

For a few long moments, Peter doesn't say anything.

"Okay," Peter says, finally.

In an instant, they're on Earth, in the middle of the jungle. A portal -- identical to the one Thanos left in back on Titan -- opens up.

Thanos steps through.

Bruce in the Hulkbuster is the first to come at him, but he's quickly disposed of, trapped in the rising Earth behind Thanos. Black Panther, Falcon, War Machine, Bucky, Oyoke, Black Widow, Groot -- all of them are disposed of easily with Thanos' power. Captain America fights him, holding Thanos' gauntleted hand open with what is clearly all of his strength only to be knocked aside easily before Thanos heads for Scarlet Witch and Vision.

She has to split her powers to hold him back; half of her is devoted to destroying the Mind Stone lodged in Vision's head as the other half is dedicated to keeping Thanos at bay, if even for a little bit longer.

Tony watched his comrades fall like dominoes, one right after the other. Former or no, they were still his. Tony didn't dare let himself hope when Thanos seemed to linger on Steve Rogers--and flinched in his core when the man went down. The hopes and struggles of all people weren't created equal.

Turning his attention to Wanda, the sheer grief and panic wrought on her face reminded Tony of how young she really was. Taking down Vision clearly took every ounce of will left in her body. And Vision himself--that brought forth stabs of pain that Tony didn't know he could still feel in his state.

The Mind Stone shatters in a burst of brilliant yellow light. When the light finally recedes, Wanda is on the ground, sobbing and Thanos does not look the least bit disturbed by any of it.

"I understand, my child. Better than anyone."

"You could never."

Thanos reaches down and runs his fingers over her hair familiarly. "Today I lost more than you can know. But now is no time to mourn."

Thanos proceeds back to Vision's broken, purple form. "Now is no time at all."

The green Time Stone lights up in his gauntlet, and everything rewinds. The stone is reformed and the red returns to Vision's body.

"No!" Wanda lunges at Thanos, but he knocks her back and raises Vision up by the neck.

Thanos shoves his fingers into Vision's head and plucks the stone out.

Hearing Vision gasp helplessly in his voice--JARVIS's voice--and then he was a gray corpse on the ground to join the coming pile. Tony's eyes scanned the environment uselessly as Thanos relished his victory, final stone in hand. One question kept replaying over and over and over in his head--

Where was Thor?

The Mind Stone snaps into the final empty socket and Thanos bellows as the power courses through his body.

Before he can revel in his power, he's knocked back a tremendous burst of lightning from above. The force of it drags him backwards through the jungle soil.

Thanos is back on his feet in an instant; all the stones light up simultaneously to form a singular beam of light. Above, Thor tosses Stormbreaker straight at it. The weapon barely slows against the force of Thanos' beam; it breaks through it and lands solidly in the Titan's chest.

Thor lands in front of Thanos. He is on one knee now, his breathig labored. Thor reaches out and presses a hand against the back of Thanos' head. He looks down at him.

"I told you..." Any of Thor's typical warmth has been drained completely from his voice. "...you'd die for that."

He shoves the blade in deeper and Thanos screams. Thor's eyes, filled with rage, never leave Thanos' face, not even when the titan's head lolls to one side.

And then, Thanos turns his head up. His eyes open.

"You should have... You should... You should have gone for the head."

The stones light up and Thor lets out a No! just as Thanos snaps his fingers.

The lightning struck and Tony felt his heart beat to life. Even if they couldn't talk or touch, Tony's breath came out in little pants at the sight of him, a heady, illogical feeling of relief washing over him.

"Th--"

The moment of warmth was extinguished the moment he heard Thor's voice. From the distance, Tony could see the look in his eye. The man wasn't wielding his weapon out of righteousness, but an absolute purity of hate.

Then, Tony was numb again. He and Thanos had the exact same thought at the exact same time.

You should have gone for the head.

Tony watched Thanos seize his victory.

When the light clears, both Thor and Thanos are staring at the smoldering gauntlet. Thor quickly snaps his attention back to Thanos.

"What'd you do? What'd you do?"

Thanos activates the gauntlet and is sucked into another portal formed by the Space Stone. Stormbreaker falls to the ground with a heavy metal sound.

Thor swallows. Steve emerges from the forest.

"Where'd he go? Thor. Where'd he go?"

Thor looks over at him but says nothing. A moment later, another voice joins Steve's.

"Steve?" When Thor and Steve turn, Bucky is disintegrating. His rifle falls to the ground. Steve reaches down to where Bucky should have fallen, but all there is is ashes.

Half a battlefield dissolves into ash. Half the Avengers do, too. It takes some time for them to find one another, but when they do, none of them speak for a long time, too stunned to find the words.

Steve is the first to vocalize anything.

"Oh, God."

One by one, watched his comrades fade to dust. Somewhere out there, his new comrades on Titan were joining the casualties. Across time and space, Tony was mourning right alongside everyone else. His body trembled from the highs of the adrenaline wearing off, and he loosely hugged himself. God, all he felt was cold.

This didn't make sense. Except it did.

They couldn't have all failed. But they had.

Tony looked to Peter, lost. He never allowed himself to look anything but absolutely certain before the boy, and he masked it, summoning his will.

"I'll save you."

Everything pauses again. When Peter turns to look at Tony, his gaze on him is steady and neutral.

"Mr. Stark, you have to understand... it's okay if you don't."

Tony just shook his head, keeping his eyes away from the devastation that laid before them.

"I will. I promise."

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