Chapter Text
“It appears that Miss Potts’ appointment went well.”
“Good,” said Toni, accepting the ball from DUM-E. “Love it when things go my way. The universe usually ends up better for it. When is our esteemed leader coming back?”
“Miss Potts believes it prudent to finish scheduling the meetings within the US before she attempts to contact Canada. Thus she will remain in Malibu, for the time being.”
“And has she dropped that interview with those AIM people?” asked Toni.
“Indeed. It turns out Miss Potts had her own experience with the CEO of the company, and had already dropped the name from the list of potential collaborators.”
Toni hummed, throwing the tennis ball from one hand to the other.
“We trust Pepper Potts, Miss,” told her JARVIS, tone of voice a little teasing.
Toni scoffed, throwing the ball a little higher up than DUM-E would have been able to catch. “DUM-E, you need to have a proper talk with your baby brother. JARVIS is making fun of me. Is that allowed?”
The bot did not even pay her any attention, too focused on retrieving his ball.
“I wonder who I learnt it from, Miss.”
“You are so grounded. DUM-E, tell him he’s grounded.”
The bot chirped absentmindedly as he finally found his ball, and then it was Toni’s turn to scramble to catch it.
She managed, nearly falling off the couch in her attempt, and she gave DUM-E a look filled with disapproval. “You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”
So did you, expressed DUM-E, and Toni tutted.
“Objection, the plaintiff is leading the witness.”
“Overruled,” said JARVIS, DUM-E, U and BUTTERFINGERS together.
Toni couldn’t help chuckling.
“Fine, you conspirators," she said. "How about a truce?”
DUM-E nodded his claw in agreement, and this time Toni was much gentler when she threw the ball at him.
DUM-E could be a disaster and gave her over ten headaches per day, but she loved him very much. Using him to vent her frustration was not going to be good for her, him or anyone else.
“Lieutenant Killmonger has not checked in yet,” said JARVIS, as Toni and DUM-E resumed their little game of catch. “Which could mean anything, from him. Agent Carter has not retrieved any relevant data yet, but she checked in earlier this morning. For the time being, it appears that Captain Rogers’ duplicity has not raised any flag within SHIELD and/or the part of HYDRA we have access to.”
“Good to know,” said Toni, catching another throw. “Nice throw there, DUM-E. A few more like this and I might have to tell the Mets they have a new pitcher.”
She took the chirping for the beaming it was meant to be, but JARVIS was apparently not done.
“Doctor Banner is currently working with Doctor Foster on the joint project that you approved yesterday and, as usual, Miss Lewis is assisting. Miss Potts and Stark Industries are doing what you have asked of them, and Mr Hogan is with Miss Potts. Colonel Rhodes is out of state on a mission with the Air Force. The Parkers are still all healthy and safe.”
Toni turned to JARVIS’ left camera, one eyebrow raised. “Good to know, but was there a particular reason for this report on my friends, family and general state of affairs? Subtlety does not befit you.”
“I will move past that rather unfair statement so that I can remind you that this is the first moment of respite you have had in a while,” said JARVIS. “This is the first time you have been in the workshop for personal matters in a long while. I believe it would be the perfect day for you to open the box.”
Open the box.
It was not that Toni had forgotten the box.
Toni had not forgotten the box.
The box was very hard to forget about.
But after the excitement from her words with Thena had faded and Toni had found herself busy with everything re her parents’ death and HYDRA, she had had to step back a little.
Re-evaluate.
Re-prioritize.
The box was most likely a very big piece of the puzzle that she had been struggling with since she had gotten alien probed by the Mind stone. Perhaps, the puzzle she had not realised she had been stuck in since she was born.
Reborn?
Point was, it was not something that she could open during her lunch break before a meeting with the Board, or right after checking that Rogers was doing his modern history homework and his anti terrorism citizenship duties.
It was something that needed to be done in its own time.
And Toni had not had her own time in a while.
Which was the point JARVIS was making by letting her know how free her schedule was at the moment, something that was unlikely to last very long, or to happen very soon again.
TON-E?
Toni glanced over at DUM-E, and gave him a small smile. “Sorry, buddy. JARVIS is trying to call me a chicken, and I can’t have that. Can we have that?”
JARVIS CHICKEN.
“I am most certainly not,” protested the AI, which only made Toni laugh and DUM-E look proud.
Laughing was good. Laughing and listening to her bot and AI bicker was 100% better than having to deal with the slight anxiety creeping down her spine the closer she got to the box sitting on the desk.
She had touched it, since the day it was brought over. Touched it, moved it around, shaken it a couple of times. Tried to keep it out of sight, out of mind, while also trying to telekinetically figure out what was hiding inside of it.
It hadn’t worked of course, because no matter how out of sight it was, the thing continued to live rent free in her mind, like the little bloodsucking mind leech it was.
Also, Toni had no telekinesis powers.
Difference was that, back then, she had touched it knowing that no matter what, she had no intention to open it. Knowing that, no matter how tempting it felt, she was never going to open it, because she was never going to care about whatever had brought Tao here before the old woman decided to go ahead and die somewhere.
Now, she didn’t have that luxury anymore.
Now, she knew that something much bigger than her was at play, and that not only she wanted to open it: she knew she was going to.
It made things a little different.
“Okay,” she then said, watching the seemingly innocuous box sitting on the desk in front of her.
Navy blue, made of some strong wood and only being kept closed by an innocent little latch that Toni could open with a flick of her fingers. There was no complicated system, not even a padlock or anything.
Or perhaps there had been, but Tao had chosen to take it off before she had handed it off to Toni?
It seemed like the sort of thing that she’d do. Take care of making sure the box was easy and accessible when she could have instead spent that time trying to make sure she didn’t die and left-
JARVIS played chicken sounds from the speakers, and Toni’s lips twitched.
“I remember when you were just a line of code,” she muttered, expertly undoing the latch. “I don’t know what happened to you, who filled your commands and protocols with sass and attitude.”
“The proverbial apple does not usually fall very far from the tree, Miss.”
Toni ignored those frankly fighting words, instead lifting the lid of the box up without further ado.
She had spent enough time around magic users that she knew better than to expect mini explosions or sudden chants of the damned to come out of it when she opened it, but she was still a little underwhelmed to be faced with what looked like a VHS tape sitting inside the box.
“That’s it?” she questioned, looking down at it in slight disappointment. “Just a tape? Then why- Oh.”
The sound of surprise was due to the pouch that appeared after she lifted the tape from the box.
What was clearly a dagger pouch.
“So I was right after all,” she mused, staring at the pouch. “Or Thena was right. Technically I answered my own question though, so I was right.”
“There is something written on the tape, Miss.”
Toni forcefully tore her eyes away from the pouch, and back to the VHS tape in her hands.
And true enough, the words ‘30th May 1981’ were staring at her, awkwardly written in her father’s handwriting on the back of the tape.
“Uh,” she mused, picking up the box with one hand while the other kept holding the tape. “The day after my sixth birthday? And in my dad’s handwriting? The plot appears to thicken.”
The plot. Because if she started to think too hard about the fact that this was her freaking life, she might start laughing or go insane, and that wouldn’t be good for anyone.
“Well, is there a VHS player anywhere in this Tower, J?”
+++
It turned out, Toni did own a VHS player. She wasn’t sure how it had survived, but she was okay with it, seen as she was in no mood to build one from scratch right now.
It became clear that the video was a security feed of her father’s workshop as soon as Toni turned it on. It was badly saturated but in colours, and Toni couldn’t help but smile slightly when she saw Howard focused on something at his desk while Toni was sitting near, busy trying to ‘imitate’ him.
She had a lot of things to say about Howard, but she had admit that a lot of her favourite memories of the two of them were just like this. The two of them ‘working’ side by side in his workshop, with her trying to imitate his work and him helping her with hers as if she was somehow a colleague, and not his daughter.
This was not one of those days she noted, watching as her younger self grew bored seconds in and walked away from Howard and his desk.
“Tiny Toni, you’re breaking your mamma's rules,” she informed her younger self, tutting in disapproval. “You can only stay in the workshop with dad if you stay close to him and don’t wander around touching stuff. The stuff in there is too dangerous for a kid.”
Tiny Toni - she wondered briefly what Hulk would call her. Baby Toni? Tinier Toni? - ignored her older and wiser self’s words, and continued to navigate the room until she found what she was looking for.
Toni was not particularly surprised to find Tiny Toni stopping in front of the Tesseract.
Why had she liked the thing so much, when she had been younger? Sure, the Tesseract spoke to her, and it told her stories, but was that reason enough for-
“Oh no,” she said, standing up straighter as the Tesseract started to actually work. Just like the day of the invasion, Toni watched as it started to glow, unnaturally blue even in the old feed. The audio was either too old or too damaged to be heard, but Toni just knew the sound it was making.
The same sound the wormhole had made that day in New York.
But Howard was not moving as the thing started to activate and pulsate, too busy working on whatever stupid thing he was doing. He was where Toni had gotten her ability to immerse herself completely in her work, but now it was all she could do not to curse at him to just look up cause there was something freaky going on there.
Tiny Toni obviously did not see it fit to inform her father of what was going on either, too busy staring at the Tesseract in awe, eyes and mouth wide open.
Toni did not remember this. She did not remember any of this, even though the proof was staring right at her in colours and shitty 144p quality.
She remembered talking to Tesseract. She remembered the Tesseract telling her stories of princesses, and space, and aliens, and magic, and gods, and Titans.
But she did not remember this.
“Fuck,” she said, watching as the wormhole managed to form in front of Tiny Toni without the need of any machine. “And then you wonder where the daddy issues came from, Howard?”
This time Howard did snap out of his daze, finally seeming to notice that something was going on.
Possibly because the wormhole was making half of the shit in the workshop fly around, and the man tended to notice that sort of stuff.
Toni did not need the audio to know what he was saying as soon as he noticed Toni. She saw it in panic in his eyes as he tried to rush and reach towards her, as he called her name.
Tiny Toni either did not hear, or she did not care (it was really 50% when it came to either version of Toni).
Either way, older Toni could only watch with a sense of numbness as her stupid pigtailed self skipped inside the wormhole like some sailor being ensnared by a siren without so much as a backward glance to her father.
And observe further as Howard screamed and made to run after her, only for some invisible force field to throw him back, hard enough that he did not immediately stand back again.
She did not remember this.
Toni did not remember any of this, and this was somehow a little scarier than not knowing her first life, forgetting her nightmares or being ensnared by the Time Stone.
Unless her younger self had been ensnared by the Tesseract?
But that did not make sense. She wasn’t sure of why, but it just didn’t make sense.
But why didn’t she remember this otherwise?
Was this a case of suppressed memories because of trauma? The fact that she was here now implied that she hadn’t been hurt, but who knew what she had seen or found on the other side?
(The Mad Titan?)
Though, she supposed, she now knew the reason Howard had gotten rid of the Tesseract not long after her birthday.
Or why Tao had made sure she never knew where it actually was being kept, let alone that it had been at SHIELD all along.
But it had not hurt her, in those few hours after they had taken the thing from Selvig. She might not have been alone with it, but she had been close enough, hadn’t she?
She had been looking for some damn answers, here. Not more fucking questions.
She watched as her father frantically attempted to get through to the field for a while longer before he eventually gave up and called for help.
Edwin arrived in the workshop 4 minutes after Tiny Toni’s trip through space.
Her mamma, 7 minutes later.
Ana Jarvis got there 13 minutes later, on Howard’s apparent orders to get Maria out despite the woman’s desperate protest.
Tao arrived 24 minutes after Toni’s space trip.
She looked as rattled as everyone else in the room once a very spooked Howard filled her in on what had happened, and Toni sat down more comfortably on the couch, curling herself in a ball.
She resolutely refused to think about the fact that, of all the people she had so far seen on the screen, she was the only one still alive.
37 minutes after Toni’s wormhole assisted road trip and 13 minutes of Tao’s failed magic attempts later, Tiny Toni strolled back into the room again, as cheerful as she had been when she had left, not an apparent scratch on her face.
Toni almost relaxed at the way her nonchalance in the face of dangerous situation was an art cultivated since childhood, but then she noticed the thing in Tiny Toni’s hands as Howard and Tao converged on her, the Tesseract powered portal closing behind her.
It was different because it was not in the pouch in the box, but Toni had no doubt about what it was.
The dagger.
The one Thena had spoken about, the one sitting at the bottom of the box that Toni had brought with her to this thriller movie.
As previously stated, the audio from the video was shaky and damaged. But Toni did not need to hear it to know what was being said.
She could see it in her father’s reddening face, in the lines of tension in Tao’s shoulder, and the way Toni went from being smiley and happy to suddenly upset while tucked in her mamma’s terrified embrace.
“Do you have... what you... through? You scared...”
“What’s...?” questioned Tao, pointing at the dagger in Tiny Toni’s hand. “Where... that?”
“I found it,” said Toni, at the same time as Tiny Toni did, eyes fixed on the video. “It was made for me. The only weapon capable of killing a god. The only weapon capable of killing me.”
“Miss?!”
Toni did not answer JARVIS, watching as her father snatched the dagger from her hand and threw it on the opposite side of the room, and then swallowed.
Made of the hardened ice of Niflheim, in a speckle of reality of Svartalfheim, blessed by the sorcerers of Alfheim, hidden away by the Jotnar - the only weapon capable of killing a god.
Who had told her that? Why had they told her that? Or was it something she had read, somewhere, some time?
She wasn’t sure.
Did this mean that that was the weapon that she had been killed with, in the end?
That didn’t seem right, she thought, looking at the dagger sitting in the box once more.
That was hers. She just... she just knew it was hers, it belonged to her.
And yet Tiny Toni had said...
And Toni had said it too. She had said it herself, because she had known.
But...
“Miss? Is that safe?”
“Weren’t you just calling me a chicken?” questioned Toni, picking up the sheathed dagger from inside the box.
“Yes, but that was before you claimed that this was the only weapon capable of killing you.”
Toni ignored him, holding the pouch carefully on one palm. It was not particularly big, thick or heavy. Just a little bigger than the one Loki had given her, but also lighter even while it was still in the pouch.
Different material, perhaps?
“Miss...?”
Toni was not much more comfortable than JARVIS himself must be, but since she was not planning on accidentally stabbing herself with the knife allegedly powerful enough to kill her, she figured she might be safe for the time being.
So she carefully and slowly pulled the dagger out of the pouch, barely noticing the folded piece of paper that slid out and fell on the floor as she did that.
All of her attention was on the blade in her hands, on the beautiful dagger she was holding. The hilt was made of something that felt smoother than wood but was not quite metal, and the carvings over it were beautiful.
The blade was a scintillating blue black, darker than navy, and when she glanced closer to it, Toni couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the silvery runes etched on the blade itself.
She could see herself inside of it, like it was a mirror.
She was in no way an expert, but the dagger was a stunning piece of craftsmanship.
“Beautiful,” she muttered, inspecting it closer. “I mean, I know it’s just a dagger but wow. It’s gorgeous, it’s-”
Toni stiffened slightly.
“JARVIS.”
“Yes, Miss?”
“Did you just see that?” she asked, staring at the dagger in her hands without daring to blink.
“See what, Miss?”
“I might be imagining things,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on her face reflected on the blade. “But I could have sworn-”
She blinked.
So did the blue eye reflected in the blade, and then it stared back at her.
+++
“No,” bemoaned Thanos, watching as blood trickled through her garments, copiously drenching the floor she was now laying on. “No, my Queen. Why would you- How could you.”
Toni did not know why she smiled at the pain on his face. Why she wasn’t cringing away from him, why she wasn’t panicking at the sight of that purple face so close to her.
All she felt was relief, as she looked at his face.
“You took Modir from me,” she told him, and she could taste blood in her mouth. Her voice was surprisingly clear despite that. Perhaps the Norns wanted him to hear her words. “You stole me from Father. You hurt the All-Mother. You forced Laufey to watch as I was dragged away.
“Most importantly, you made me lose my brothers.
“This is no less than you deserve, Thanos. No less, and know that had it been in my power, you would suffer much more. Know that if it is in my power, my wrath will follow you tenfold long after my death.”
“My Queen-”
Toni laughed, and her chest burned at that. It was worse than the reactor, it was like something was physically liquifying her insides.
And still her lips remained smiling, and laughter came out of her throat.
“Clean your foolish lips of such baseless claims, you half-witted creature. I am not your Queen. I was never your Queen, and I shall never be. I am Queen of Nowhere, and lost Princess. I have no homes, for you stole them from me.”
You are our Princess.
Toni smiled at the Tesseract, and moved one bloody hand to rest on it as Thanos continued to cry his ridiculous crocodile tears over her body. She felt hotter and colder than she should, both at the same time.
She was scared.
She was alone.
“Perhaps I am the Princess of Infinity,” she mused, not minding the blood that she spilled over it. She did not think the Tesseract minded either. “Perhaps that is enough, for now. Perhaps that is enough to keep you from the hands of a Mad Man who does not understand.”
She glanced at the ceiling over her head, feeling more tired and in pain than before.
She wanted to antagonise the All-Mother yet still.
She wanted to converse with Laufey-King once more.
She wanted to argue with Father one more time.
She wished to mourn Modir.
And she wanted to hug her brothers again.
But life was precious, and her life was running from her.
“My life. For Infinity.” Her mouth kept saying words Toni did not understand, one hand on the Tesseract and the second on her chest. Her blood was bubbling under her fingers. “Tis a worthy barter. If it means you will remain unhappy for the rest of existence, tis a worthy gamble.”
“Why won’t you heal? You’re a goddess! You are the Goddess of Death! Why won’t you heal?”
And yet still, the Titan did not understand Life. He did not know Death.
So how could he proclaim himself a hoarder of Infinity?
She did not say this though. She did not wish to waste more breath on this monster - he had taken too much of her already. Too much - and instead she hummed to herself, a tune Modir had sang for her, and that she had sang for her brothers.
She kept humming it, even as her hand yanked the blade out of her chest and the necklace from around her neck, letting the blood fall freely and more easily.
She did not wish for her brothers to find her body.
She did not pay the crying Thanos any attention as he attempted to stop the blood flow.
She couldn’t heal this wound, and he most certainly could not. This was the only weapon capable of killing a goddess. It had been meant for Father, but in the end she felt this was a better use for it.
Her siblings would need their fathers, now more than ever.
Sleep now, starseed. You have worked hard. Infinity will not forget you.
We won’t forget you.
Forevermore, we will guard you and your heart.
Toni wasn’t listening to the Tesseract. Instead she watched the blood dripping down her own visage reflected on the dagger, as space and the stars spread for lightyears out of her window.
A starseed dead among dead stars, in the arms of a Mad Titan, surrounded by Infinity.
Almost a fitting end.
+++
The blade dropped to the ground.
Toni could hear JARVIS talking to her, could hear him inside her head and outside it, trying to get her attention but she couldn’t hear him.
Her ears were ringing, and she could barely breathe. All she could see, in her head, was that woman, that... her.
The woman who had been in chains on Jotunheim, the woman who had been captured by Thanos and screamed about her mother when she had seen the headless person.
The woman who had, in the end, been alone in space and decided to kill herself rather than be the man’s... Titan’s... girlfriend? Wife? What the fuck did ‘his queen’ even imply?
The woman who had killed herself.
She had killed herself.
She had stabbed herself in the chest with that dagger, and she had died.
She had killed herself, and she had died light years away from anyone who she had ever called family.
And they most likely hadn’t even known. They couldn’t have known, because someone had altered Reality, and erased that woman from the mind of everyone in the freaking universe.
She had committed the ultimate sacrifice, to save her family and the universe, and then the universe and her family had forgotten her.
She had been forgotten.
Erased.
She had killed herself.
MOM-E?
“DUM-E?” said Toni, opening her eyes again. She did not remember having closed them in the first place.
She also did not remember how she had ended up in the living room of the penthouse, hidden under the piano like she was a kid again.
Was it depressing that she still fit comfortably without having to try?
“How did you get out of the workshop?” she questioned, watching the bot’s awkward attempts to pat her leg with his claw.
“I do not have a body, Miss,” said JARVIS, a hint of relief in his voice. “You were not listening to me, and you were hyperventilating. I had to make a judgement call.”
“You called in the cavalry,” she surmised, observing U’s rather pathetic attempts at getting under the piano with her. “I think I’m supposed to say ‘thank you’?”
Y-E-S, said U, thrusting what looked like tissue at her. C-R-Y.
“I don’t need to cry,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t cry. I’m fine.”
DUM-E made a slight distressed sound, as did U and BUTTERFINGERS, and Toni frowned. “What? I’m fine, guys, I just freaked out. Chill.”
“You are already crying, Miss,” said JARVIS, a little timidly. “You have been crying for a few minutes now.”
“No, I haven’-” Toni cut herself off when she felt some wetness under her eyes. She looked at her wet fingers, a little bemused. “Well, that’s just awkward for everyone involved.”
“We won’t tell if you won’t,” promised JARVIS, and Toni only laughed.
If her grief for someone long dead spilled out of her eyes while she did that, well neither her AI nor her bots were going to rat her out to anyone.