Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In many timelines, New York City of 2012 is destroyed not by Chitauri but by the explosion of a nuclear warhead.

There, a waitress, hiding with other civilians. There, a nurse, woken after a night shift by the sounds of the attack outside. There, a bodega owner, hiding behind the counter holding his cat. There, a boy fidgeting with legos, who sits in front of the TV with his aunt and uncle. There, an artist, last street mural left unfinished. There, two lawyers, one trying desperately to drown out the noise. There, a girl watching the fierce fighting from her window. There, a librarian and a student, almost finished with their dissertation, huddled in the library stacks. There, a bus full of schoolchildren, meant to experience Broadway for the first time this evening. 

And of course, the Avengers, fighting to the last.

In many timelines, all of them die in a thermonuclear explosion. 

New York has over eight million people. But I find large numbers often become incomprehensible abstractions to mortal minds. In much the same way, I could not adequately explain to you the balance of universes in which the Battle of New York happens: those in which New York is conquered, the ones in which it is annihilated, and the ones in which it is saved.

What I can tell you is that in many universes where New York is saved from that thermonuclear explosion, it is saved by Tony Stark. 

Not always. Sometimes the Wasp manages to disarm the warhead. Sometimes it is James Rhodes in the suit. Sometimes the pilot simply refuses to fire.

But many times, it is saved by Tony Stark. And sometimes he makes it back. And sometimes, he doesn’t.

Once, he survived on the other side of the wormhole, shunted through distorted space and time to a planet of scraps. Once, he gathered others to free the planet. Once, he set out to return home with an unexpected ally, and maybe friend, flying beside him.

But I’ve already told you that part of the story. Or at least, most of it …

---

"I can't go back to my father without you, Stark."

Take a breath.

“Fine by me,” he says, with more bravado than he feels. “Saved this planet, check, killing Thanos is the next thing on the list.”

“You could not kill Thanos,” Gamora says. “Not even if you were brought to him with your hands free. No one can.”

“See, I think convincing people no one can kill him is doing a lot of the work in having him not be killed. Heck, I’m sure people thought the Grandmaster was going to be their eternal leader because he had a sidekick with this.” He kicks the staff.

“If you compare Thanos to the Grandmaster, you truly betray your ignorance of the galaxy, Earthling.”

“Hey, no. Thanos sent an army to my planet. I didn’t see the Grandmaster doing that. I know the difference,” he says. “He sent an army to my planet, we chased it off, I blew up his ships. Then he sent you after me. By the way, all that news footage, I didn’t see any word of a storm of his vengeance coming down on Earth with another army.” He looks at Gamora, who is still stony faced. “He’s not sending another army down to Earth, is he?”

“Not yet,” she says. “It is not the time.”

“Yeah, okay, except it was the time before we trounced Loki and his army. And that was me and five other guys, and one of those guys has a bow and arrow, and another one’s got a frisbee, okay, I’m just sayin. But he’s not going for vengeance on the Avengers - say that five times fast - he’s not going back to Earth, because Earth’s tougher than he thought it was, and we bloodied his nose. He doesn’t want that to happen again. 

“He is sending you after me though, because I’m one lone ‘Earthling’ out in the universe, and yeah, everyone saw me blowing up his ships, but that’s not the big deal. He wants to show that ‘no one stands up to Thanos and lives’, but he doesn’t want to try to make that point by going back to Earth, and risk getting a black eye for it. He thinks it’s easier to make an example of one Earthling. 

“That’s why you can’t go home without me.” He concludes. “He doesn’t think he’s strong enough to be sure he could take on Earth in round two. That sound like the MO of someone unkillable to you?”

“People have tried to kill Thanos,” she says. “People stronger than you. They’ve failed.”

“Sure, sure. And I bet you’ve had a part in making sure they failed, right?” She looks away. “No, alright, listen - say somebody wants to kill Mr. Unkillable. They go around, ask the five toughest guys they know, guys who all hate this guy. Hey, you want to come help me kill Mr. Unkillable, five guys go no, he’s unkillable, I’m not going to get myself killed trying something impossible. First guy goes, tries to kill Mr. Unkillable, he’s alone, he beefs it, everybody says, there you go, you can’t kill Mr. Unkillable. 

“Say the same guy wanted to kill Mr. Pretty-Tough, goes around, ask the five toughest guys they know, hey, you want to come help kill Mr. Pretty-Tough, they go, well, he’s pretty tough, but we’re tough, and we really want to kill this guy. Let’s go, all of us together, we’ll kick his ass. Six guys, they kick his ass, everybody goes, oh Mr. Pretty-Tough wasn’t all that tough. Definitely wasn’t unkillable.”

“I am not a child, Stark,” she says, but her weapon is no longer pointed at him.

“Not saying you are. Just saying, reputation does a lot of work. Believe me, I would know.” He says. “If you let him convince you he’s already won -” then no one tries to fight him at all.

“You tell stories,” she says. “And you know nothing.”

“I know you could have killed me about half a dozen times so far. Maybe more,” he says. “And you didn’t.”

Her weapon, which has been dropping by inches, slumps to her side. “If he finds out that I …” She doesn’t finish the sentence. Helped him? Showed mercy? “He would make me pay. He … would make me suffer. Make me watch my sister suffer.”

His stomach churns. Sakaar picked up signals from as far away as Earth - not that he’s sure how far away earth is - he has to wonder how far the Grandmaster’s ‘chariot’ races were carried across the galaxy - or if it was too much to hope for that they were only local ‘bread-and-circuses, hold the bread’.

“And I thought I had issues with my dad,” he says.

“I’m a daughter of Thanos,” she says, flatly, like that explains everything.

“Look, clearly my issues don’t hold a candle to yours but … I’ve tried being a good son to a living dad and I’ve tried being a bad son to a living dad. I’ve tried being a good son to someone else who sometimes treated me like a son until I was more useful dead so he tried to kill me - a few times, actually, sounds a bit like your dad.” 

Gamora makes a face, he sighs. 

“I’ve tried being a good son to a ghost. I’ve tried it all,” he says. “The only thing that ever did anything good was trying to be a half decent me.” He looks at her. “I think you could be a pretty good you. Making a solid start, actually.”

She looks at him for a moment, then looks away, shaking her head. “I’ve defied him before but - that was to keep one of the stones from him.” 

He decides to hold on questions about ‘the stones’, but yeah, he’s definitely circling back on that.

“I was still punished for failing but - I managed to keep from him the full extent of my - betrayal.” She shakes her head again. “I do not want to watch him come to greater power. The power he wants, for his balance.” 

Again with the balance thing - seriously, what was this guy’s deal?

“I do not want to watch more worlds die. More people.” She looks back up at him. “And I don’t have any desire to watch you die. You are not a bad man, and you don’t deserve to die in the way he will make you die.”

“Then help me.”

“You want to kill him,” she says. “You’re assuming a daughter of Thanos wants to see Thanos dead.”

“Do you want to see him alive? Hurting you and your sister? Invading more planets? Getting more powerful? Killing more people? Because that’s how your options sound right now.”

She looks away. “I can take you somewhere else. Off of this planet. I… do not need to bring you to Thanos, if he can be convinced you are dead. I can fake that. A death in a crash. Bring him your suit and enough biological materials -”

“Hang on, biological materials?”

“To be convincing. With some alterations -”

“Now hold up -”

“You can stay alive - hidden. There are enough corners of the galaxy for that. He won’t be looking for you if he thinks you’re dead.”

“Yeah, here’s the problem, I don’t do hiding. See, I’ve got people to get home to. So I’ll find a way back to Earth, even if you leave me on a backwater world and I’ve gotta build a way with a busted alien toaster oven and a - whatever. And after I get home? I’ll be coming back with my toughest guys to kill him.”

“You will die.”

“Maybe. Point is, hiding’s not an option. If I take too long finding a way back, Earth’s going to come find me .” 

“Earth thinks you are dead.”

“Maybe most of Earth does. But I know who doesn’t. James Rhodes. Rhodey.” 

Rhodey had been in the shot, next to Pepper - and thank whatever luck he had out there for that. 

“He's my friend.” He says, to Gamora’s raised eyebrow. “Rhodey’s searched for me before, when everyone thought I was dead. He won’t give up.”

He won’t give up on me.

“Your people don’t even have space travel,” she says, but there’s … something tempered about it. There isn’t the same edge.

“Well - okay, not at this scale, yeah, but we know people who do, now. Gods, apparently.”

“Asgardians.”

“Yeah. And Rhodey could probably invent galactic space travel anyway, man’s a genius. I mean. I started college a year younger, so. But still, he got two aerospace degrees for a reason - I should know, I was there. And he can usually keep up with me, so, y’know, he’d get it eventually.”

Gamora is giving him the look of ‘what is the Earthling blabbering on about this time and when will he stop.’ Finally, she says, “I don’t know if friendship with you is a sign of good judgement.”

“No, that’s fair,” he says, and sighs. “I’ve been lucky in a lot of things. Born into money, always helps. Mostly I’ve been lucky in my friends, and you can’t buy that. Not for lack of trying.”

Gamora considers him. Then she asks, “Are you less insufferable to your friends?”

He laughs at that. “No. Definitely not. More, if anything.”

“It must be a lot of luck on your side.” She raises her eyebrow, but there isn’t a blade’s edge to the hint of a smirk.

“It’s not the worst place to be. On my side.” He looks at her. “I guess the question is, am I lucky enough in my friends this time?”

---

He doesn’t see it on the news, thankfully. He hears it from Pepper.

Which was sort of ironic, given that the last time Tony had gone missing he had been the one to call her, after she had already seen it on the news. 

It started with his phone ringing moments after he turned it on, JARVIS on the screen, which was a bad sign to begin with. 

Jarvis monitored not just his suit but his phone - and probably any other electronics within a hundred yards of him - which, the phone thing at least he’d probably have said ‘okay’ to if Tony had actually asked, but he hadn’t, which was the sort of mildly annoying ignorance or ignoring of boundaries that was so far down the list of worrying things about Tony that it never became worth arguing about. 

If Tony had been calling, he would have just routed the call to the War Machine suit helmet - which he had. Frequently. 

If Jarvis had waited until his phone was on, it meant the AI, with the good sense of his namesake, had decided there was something he should know as soon as possible, but not while he was flying or fighting, and, importantly, in control of a wide array of deadly and massively destructive weapons.

It meant there was nothing he could do. 

As things go, being routed to Pepper by Jarvis and finding out that Tony was missing while in a secure base, was better circumstances than waking up in pain in a medical tent and having what he had hoped was a nightmare confirmed as reality. 

On the other hand, finding out ‘yes, that attack on the caravan did happen, no, Stark hasn’t been recovered’ was slightly less to adjust to than ‘aliens invaded New York, then a nuke almost got dropped on it, but Iron Man flew the nuke through the wormhole that the aliens came from, no, he didn’t make it back before the wormhole closed.’

Which is about where he got to yelling at Nick Fury, who was probably also grateful he wasn’t currently in control of a wide array of deadly and massively destructive weapons at the time.

“... and did he know this was a suicide mission? Did they? Did you? ” Rhodey snaps. “You making a habit of knowing when he’s going to die and not mentioning it to anyone else?”

“I’m sorry, I missed the part where I report to you.”

“Yeah, that’s all it is? Who gives orders to who? ‘Cause I’m used to orders, but we’ve got some strong ideas about leaving a man behind.”

“Stark made that call, Rhodes. It wasn’t an order; he knew what was at stake.” Fury gives him a hard look. “Calls were made by the people who were here -”

And you weren’t. 

Too close to home.

“And what? You’re glad I wasn’t, so you can jump on replacing the Iron Man you never liked? Think you can poach me from the Air Force this time? Because -”

“ Colonel Rhodes.” Fury says, and Rhodey stares directly at him, words caught in his throat. He finally takes a breath. 

“Stark made the call, and that’s the reason we’re here having this conversation, and not dealing with the fallout of a nuclear New York. But there’s still more consequences to be dealt with than him being gone. You better go cool your head before you decide what you’re going to do about them.”

“With all due respect,” none, “You’re not my superior officer. And what I’m going to do is find him. ” 

To that, Fury just gives him a one-eyed stare, and stalks away with a swish of his coat. Rhodey is left to walk away in turn. 

---

Here is Nick Fury. The head of SHIELD, the super spy, the hard nosed pragmatist. Not, certainly, someone known for sentiment. But, of course, no one is watching him right now. Well, no one except us.

Fury is in an observation room, and, much like us, is watching someone who cannot see him. In fact, Phil Coulson cannot see anything at the moment. The fine needles of machines are reaching inside his brain, and blue blood is being pumped through his body, as Phil Coulson is the first person to fully undergo project TAHITI, a project developed by SHIELD, under the oversight of Agent Coulson himself. When he is revived, Agent Coulson will not remember this, or remember his prior work on the project. He will not remember recommending that project TAHITI be cancelled. Tahiti is a magical place, after all.

But that is another story. 

Project TAHITI was designed to revive a fallen Avenger - to go to any lengths to bring them back. That’s a fact that is weighing heavily on Nick Fury’s mind, at the moment, as he goes to those lengths to bring back Phil Coulson. 

The weight in Fury’s hands appears, initially, unremarkable, if outdated: a pager. That pager is Fury’s lifeline to a woman both he and Coulson met, over a decade ago. A woman who, he knows, is on the other side of the galaxy right now. A real ‘break glass in case of emergency’ kind of thing.

And if you are going to any lengths for an Avenger…

Well. There we go.

Now the call is out. Whether Captain Marvel can find one man in the vast reaches of space is another question…

---

“Captain’s log…”

Tony Stark looks out at the vast reaches of space. 

He’d thought he would die looking at a view much like this. 

Once he’d flown through the wormhole, it was - it was only a matter of time before the suit stopped being able to process his air, before oxygen ran out. He’d looked at the stars and called Pepper thinking he would die with that view...

He hadn’t expected to be the first human to set foot on another planet. He hadn’t expected to fly in a spaceship, heading to what is, most likely, just a different death

At least here, there is no invading fleet blotting out part of the sky. There are only stars and swirling nebula gasses.

He’d dreamed of space. Born too late to witness the first moon landing, and too young to remember the last Apollo missions, he’d still grown up with their stories. Seen Star Wars for his birthday when he was seven. Sat in the living room with reruns of Star Trek. And starting in his sophomore year of college, he and Rhodey had watched every episode of The Next Generation with fervor and excitement. 

Rhodey thought Geordi LaForge was the best character on television, and he hadn’t been wrong. And they’d wanted to build someone like Data. Rhodey…  

Rhodey had dreamed of space with him. The first astronauts had been fighter pilots, after all. 

But he - he’d ended up flying a much different way. And when he’d first flown, he’d flown - up. Above the clouds. Towards the stars… 

Now he’s among the stars. 

“Wish you could see this…”

He pauses for a moment, some part of him expecting Rhodey to fly up in his suit, tap on the glass, some Asgardian spaceship behind him.

The expanse of space looks back at him.

Star Trek. That’s what he wants when - when, not if, he tells himself - he gets home - Rhodey and the couch and the only stars to see the ones visible through the viewscreen of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, for as many hours as he could get away with.

He clears his throat. “Right, Captain’s Log. Stardate… uhh, hmm.” 

How many days had it been, since he’d gone through the wormhole… 

“Hey, Gamora,” he starts, at the sound of footsteps behind him, “you know what day it is?”

Gamora is silent - no surprise there - and when he turns, she is just looking out the window, into space.

“Hey, all good?” he asks. “Korg and Val stocked us with everything we need - fuel, oxygen, food - there’s nothing wrong with the ship, is there?” she shakes her head. “Oh, good.” He lets out a breath. “I hope there’s something to drink that isn’t from Sakaar. Val probably put some of that top flight stuff just to mess with me. Or she kept it, finest for the king and all. You look like you might want some,” he says. “You alright? You’re looking less - stoicly stabby than usual.”    

“This is…” She shakes her head. “This is not a choice… this is not a choice I ever expected to be pursuing.”

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Yeah, that… that checks out.”

“I am… a Daughter of Thanos. I cannot take that away. I have been ranked above the highest in his Black Order for many years now.” She looks at him. “You said you’ve done … bad things. I assure you, I have done far worse. In his name…”

“Hey. You stopped. You didn’t kill me, which, much appreciated by the way. You - you kept that - stone-thingy from him,” he says. “And - you know what you’re going to do now.”

“It is - almost certainly hopeless.”

“Hey, y’know, I blew up his armies, you outrank all his - his top people. And, freed Sakaar. I like our chances. Well maybe don't like, like us a strong word, buuuut I don't think they're as lopsided as you think.”

“Even if we succeed…” she lets out a long breath. “Even if I kill him, it will bring back none of the people I killed.”

“Yeah. But it’ll keep more people from dying,” he says. “If I knew how to make living with the first part easy… well, I’d tell you. But I don’t know. Never have.”

“It should not be easy. I should not…”

“Hey, you - don’t let it eat you up. You - dads can get all kinds of shit in your head, and yours is clearly an exceptional piece of work, I mean, head and shoulders above -” 

“I had a father,” she says. “And a mother. When Thanos came to my planet… they were among the people he killed.” Her voice is still steady. “I hardly remember it, some days. I was … young.”

He swears under his breath. “I’m sorry, kid, that’s a - that’s a terrible way to lose your parents.”

“You spoke of a man who… acted as a father, as long as you were useful. I… your Earth dealings do not compare to the wider galaxy, but… the comparison is not entirely unwarranted.”

At least Obadiah hadn’t killed his parents. It - it had been an accident.

(He wouldn’t have, right? But then again, he never would have thought Obie would try to kill him.)

“My planet,” she says, “was a microcosm of … the lesson Thanos sees, of balance. The planet struggled, there were days when my family went hungry. He killed so that those who remained could eat, could survive. So the planet would be in balance.” She looks at him. “That is what he seeks for the universe.”    

So it turns out he really, really didn’t actually want to know this guy’s deal. Fuck.

Well, he wasn’t going to feel bad about killing him, that was for sure. “That’s - that’s some Governor Kodos shit.”

“What?”

So Earth news broadcasts may get out to space, but apparently original series Star Trek hasn’t. Or Gamora hasn’t watched it. Probably the more likely thing. “Earth… media reference. Point is, that’s some awful, bad-guy shit, and I’m sorry.”

“He made me a tool. To forward his mission. To gain power. To help bring him the stones, so he can have enough power to do to the universe what he did to my planet.”

Okay, when this conversation was over he was going to need to sit for a moment and maybe have a top shelf drink about that as a concept. Hell, he had to call Val, warn her - she must be able to find a way to warn Earth. If they failed -

They couldn’t fail. Not with this. 

They can do it. It’s fine.

“Fucking Christ,” he says, in lieu of trying to unpack all that. “Did he not consider power could be used to like, feed more people? Is there no concept of international - interplanetary aid out here? Space UNICEF?” Whatever SI is putting towards food aid, he’s doubling it. 

She looks at him like he’s speaking nonsense, which is an improvement over a dead eyed stare at the floor.

“We won’t let - that   - we won't let it happen,” he says. “No way, no how. We’re going to stop him.” He nods firmly. “We kill him, we go back to Earth, we figure it out. Or - or wherever you want to go. You can go there.”

“Nowhere in the galaxy is home,” she says. “And - if we do succeed, we will be hunted wherever we go. The Black Order will not rest.”

“So uh - there’s no chance their boss being dead will get them to stand down?”

“Some of the lower lieutenants may take the opportunity to escape,” she says, grim. “But the others… he commands loyalty and fear alike. Some may seek vengeance. Others may believe this is a test, that he is not truly dead. That he is watching what they will do next; testing their loyalty.” 

Nausea roils. “What would you have believed?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “It would not be beyond him. He plays with minds…” she shakes her head. “Nebula will not believe he is gone.”

“Nebula your … sister?”

She nods. “She is the other one taken as a … daughter of Thanos. He would play games with us,” she says, and he’s sure she doesn’t mean catch. “He would favor me, and use that as - a reason to hurt her. To make her a sharper weapon. She will not believe he is dead.”

She will not believe he isn’t going to hurt her again, he hears.

“She is - she is my sister,” Gamora says. “She … deserves better than for me to leave her again. But -”

“Hey,” he says. “We’ll get her out.”

“That is - that may not be possible.”

“Good thing we’re already trying something that isn’t supposed to be possible, then.”

“I could not ask that.”

“Well, that’s another good thing,” he says. “You don’t have to ask.”

---

“Colonel Rhodes -”

Rhodey pointedly does not turn to look at the red, white, and blue out of the corner of his vision. 

He keeps walking. Captain America falls into step. 

“Didn’t sound like it went well in there.”

‘Calls were made by the people who were here -’

His mind is still occupied by a half dozen other things he could have said to Fury, and if he has to talk to Captain America - 

If he has to talk to Captain America, the one who had been here, the one who, he’d bet every dollar in his pocket, had made the call to close that damn portal - if he had to talk to Captain America, Howard Stark’s personal project - 

“We’ve both lost soldiers before,” Captain America says. “But - it’s always hard.”

In an act of immense restraint, Rhodey keeps walking and does not, in fact, turn around and sock him in his All-American jaw.

“It’s hard enough when you - when you see it happen. But - I think, for me, it was harder, to wake up from the ice, and find out that - I’d lost so many.” 

“He’s not dead,” he says. “He’s disappeared on me before. It doesn’t take.”

There’s a pause. “I - understand wanting to hope. Especially when it’s - well. It didn’t feel real to me either, to find out. Still doesn’t, if I’m being honest.” 

“He’s not dead.” He finally whirls and faces Captain America, staring up at him and trying not to shake. Back off. 

“What I’m trying to say is, I know how -”

If he has to hear Captain Goddamn America say ‘I know how you feel’ he is actually going to sock that All-American jaw. 

“ Don’t.” Rhodey snaps. “You were here.” I should have been here. “You made the call, didn’t you? You made the call to leave him?”

“I gave the order to close the portal,” he says, shoulders stiffening to attention. “I - Stark made the call to take the bomb. I - I didn’t expect it, if I’m being honest, but -”

“Don’t call him that.” 

“What?” 

“Don’t call him Stark. Like you -” He bites back his words. 

Captain America takes a breath. “Iron Man - Tony - he made the sacrifice play. He’s the reason any of us are still standing - that New York’s still standing.”

“You know, that doesn’t sound any better coming from you than it did from Fury. A lot fucking worse, actually.”

“He made that choice, and I - I would have taken his place if I could -” 

I should have been here. I should have been in the suit.

“ - but I respect his choice.”

“Of course you would have,” he says, low and furious.

“I -” 

He snaps, fixing Captain America with a glare, vision hot and red. “You think that’d be the end of it, don’t you? The world stops when you take an ice nap? Well, some people don’t just let that lie. Some people aren’t so ready to give up. 

“You know, when everyone else in the world thought you were dead, you know who didn’t? Howard fucking Stark. He put everything he had into trying to find you -”

It hadn’t hit him until after an argument about resuming the search for Tony in Afghanistan, about returning to the field with more men and more choppers - he’d been walking down the hall when it had hit him that he was doing the same, and he’d been forced to acknowledge, grudgingly, that he could understand Howard Stark better. Not well. But better.

“- and you want to know how I know that?”

Captain America doesn’t look surprised at this, which manages to piss him off even more.   

“I knew Tony for a grand total of six years while Howard was still alive. Didn’t meet Howard much, between college and training and the fact that he could hardly be bothered to give a shit. Edwin and Ana Jarvis - ‘your girl’, Peggy Carter, Aunt Peggy - I saw more of them.”

There’s a moment where Captain America blinks at that name, Peggy Carter - of course he does. He expects him to say something - almost wishes he would shout - but Captain America doesn’t.  

“They’d all known Howard and Tony longer,” he continues, “and none of them was surprised that you always came first - ahead of his own son, ahead of his wife.” 

And this is the guy? It didn’t matter - nothing would have excused - but really? This is fucking it?

“Never once did I see him for a second act like his wife and son might come before the tiniest hint that you were still alive out there.” He snorts.

In the moment’s pause, Captain America looks at him, a space behind his blue eyes where anger belongs, his stare almost - vacant. It’s not an unfamiliar look. “I never really expected Howard to - get married, have - have a kid.”

He snorts. “There were a lot of things you didn’t expect. Maybe if you’d been bothered training on emergency landings, or god forbid bailing out of a damn plane, we wouldn’t be in this mess. You wouldn’t have -” lost them. 

For a moment, it looks like Captain America is about to say something, like that hole where anger should be might flare to life again, but he doesn’t, and Rhodey sure as hell isn’t going to wait for him. 

“Yeah, he had a kid. He liked the idea of legacy, passing on the family name, I guess. But his kid? The person in front of him? Nah. Didn’t matter what he did, what he made, what awards he won, none of it. He didn’t have a clue who his son was, at all - and he could have been a trophy-perfect legacy capstone whatever, and he'd still take second place to you. The best thing Howard Stark ever did. Maybe you were.” It’s not like it’s a high bar. It’s not like he gets credit for - “All that mattered to him was the chance that you might be alive.

“Guess he was right. You were alive.”

The second - the millisecond - he’d been sure it was Tony he was seeing in the desert sands - Tony alive, and waving - that would live etched on him forever, with the moment he’d felt Tony’s shoulder under his hand, real and solid - 

“If he were still here he’d probably be happier that you are still alive than anything he could be bothered to feel about Tony. He wouldn’t care that you’d given his son up for dead. Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? You see someone go down, and they’re gone. If it were up to you -”

‘Next time, you ride with me.’

“- he’d have died in that desert. Well, that’s not what I do.”

But he hadn’t been there. Hadn’t been there for Tony to ride with him - hadn’t been there like he promised -

- and he’d been lucky enough to find him alive once, and he’s lost him again, because he should have been there and he hadn’t.

“Howard might not have thought he was lucky to have him, but he was wrong. We all are. And Howard doesn’t get any credit for that. That man ... wasn't a part of any of that. Jarvis and Ana... Maria... Peggy Carter found the time to say kinder words about Tony than he ever did. They might get the credit. He doesn't. He was too busy taking credit for you. 

“But Tony still -” cried when he died. He bites that back. He doesn’t get to know that. Hell, Tony would probably rather Captain America not know any of this, but his anger is far past the point of stopping. “Tony still cared. And - I’ve been there for him.” 

But not this time. 

“My family was there for him. Howard doesn’t care about holding on to his son, and Fury doesn’t, and you don’t, and maybe the whole damn world is ready to give him up for dead but I am not. I. Am. Holding. On.” 

He should have been there. He hadn’t. He’s here now. 

He’ll get him back again.

For a long moment, Captain America just stands and looks, like Rhodey isn’t even there, like he’s looking right through him. “Sometimes people are just gone”, he says, his voice low and tired, but something uncertain wavered

“And some of us have to live this life.” He snarls.  

There’s a tiny break in the blankness, almost a flinch, and he whirls again.

“ I might be chasing a man who might be dead but at least I'm not doing it to keep credit for my most popular toy -  and I haven't got a -” his throat catches for a moment, “spouse and child I'll ignore for - for someone who'd rather just stay in the goddamn ice.”

He feels the words leave his mouth and shuts it, turns away before he can say anything else that he can’t take back. 

He’s already striding down the corridor before he hears, “Didn’t realize it was that obvious.” 

He’d kept his voice low enough that Rhodey could pretend he hadn’t heard it, but still, he stops dead in his tracks.

He turns around, takes a step back towards him. “I've seen enough soldiers, in and out, who weren't thinking about it but weren't not thinking about it, you know.”

He was right. They were both soldiers. 

A soldier looks back up at him. “You have a suit. You know the specs better than anyone else here,” Captain America says, and there’s something distinctly different in his expression. Focused. “You really think he could be alive?”

He knows exactly how little time Tony would have before he ran out of oxygen. “Yeah. I do.” He says sharply. “So help find him, or get out of the way.”

“Right.” Captain America - or maybe, he admits to himself, Steve Rogers -  says, and now it’s clear, there’s a sharp gleam in his eye that hadn’t been there before. “If there’s anyone with eyes that far out, it’ll be Thor. I’ll get him before he leaves the planet with Loki. You work your end.” He tilts his head. “Banner might have some ideas.”

He looks at Rhodey, who’s still blinking at the about face - at hearing Rogers say all of this as though he hadn’t just said the things he’d said, hadn’t raised his voice and taken out some of the past few decades of resentment of Howard Stark on him. 

Then before Rhodey can say anything else, Rogers nods, setting off with long purposeful strides, like a herding dog that’s just narrowed in on task to one wayward member of the flock. 

Rhodey blinks, and turns to walk away as well.

“Colonel Rhodes.” 

He stops, turns around.

“Your file says you’re a weapons expert. After this, I could use your help on another project.”

He raises his eyebrows.

“It’s not going to make Fury’s life any easier. If you’re interested.” There’s a shadow of a smirk that belongs to Steve Rogers.

He blinks. “We’ll talk.” 

---

Thor will indeed call upon his people to search for Iron Man. He will call upon Heimdall, whose gaze pierces across the Nine Realms - and has, yet, been reminded of all he cannot see, with the reappearance of Thor’s brother from where he had gone unseen.

For Heimdall is not a Watcher, and he is not outside of time. He cannot see that as hours pass for him, for Thor, for James Rhodes, mere milliseconds go by in the spaces between, created by the portal’s collapse, where Tony Stark is falling. 

He watches the space where the portal had closed, where the Chitauri fleet, brought by Thanos’s command to follow Loki, lies dead. He sees no gleam of red and gold armor in the wreckage, only the stillness of the dead fleet.

But in the days to come - days I have already seen, already shown you - he will turn his gaze elsewhere, finding conversations - shouted, whispered - now falling within his sight, of a ‘metal mojo man’, who had freed a far flung planet that collected what was lost across the galaxy.

Despite what we know, for Heimdall, this is far from a certain lead. But it is reason enough to keep looking…

---

“What was that? Couldn’t see you for a second there.”

The hologram of Val flickers back into a convincing illusion of solidity.

“I was asking when you’re going in,” she says, raising her voice.

“We’ll be in range in a couple hours, so Gamora’s going to call it in that Iron Man is her suitably helpless prisoner.”

Val snorts at the sight of his face.

“So - after this call, we’re going dark.”

Val nods. “I still haven’t been able to reach - Earth ,” she says, apologetically.

“That’s - yeah.” He takes a breath. “If you haven’t heard from us in a week, just - well, keep trying to reach Earth.”

“I have - your recordings.”

He nods. “Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. If - if you get through, if we - if you do send them, tell them -” There really wasn’t anything adequate, was there? He’d tried to say it all in the messages, and it still didn’t feel like - enough. And he can’t - “Tell them I’m sorry.”

She looks at him, long enough that for a moment he thinks the transmission has frozen again. “I know - something about losing someone - someone you love,” she says, looking away, “sometimes - I think I’d give anything to hear her voice again.” She looks back up at him. “I - I’ll make sure it reaches them, if it comes to that, but,” she adds, “I’d rather it didn’t. I hate delivering bad news.”

“Trust me, I plan on coming out of this alive. I’ll send you a souvenir.”

“Are you sure I -”

“We’ve been over this, you’ve got a planet to run. Besides,” he adds, “we’re being sneaky, and you and Korg are the opposite of sneaky.”

“ You aren’t sneaky either.” 

“Hey, I’m being the prisoner, I don’t have to be sneaky. I can be angry and shake my shackled fists all I like.” She looks at him skeptically. “C’mon, going in pretending to be a prisoner is a classic for a reason. Very Star Wars… though I think that would make me Chewbacca.”

Val laughs. “ What are you talking about, metal man?”

“Did you not get Star Wars out here? Okay, when I get back to Earth, I’m sending you a copy of Star Wars.”

“You do that.”

He catches Gamora’s eye as she looks around the edge of the door. “Alright, actually going dark now. Stark out.”

Val waves before the transmission cuts.

He lets out a breath, and turns to Gamora. “Right, then. No turning back now.”

“No,” she says. “There is not.” Gamora looks at the place where Valkyrie’s hologram had been. “You know we go to face death.”

“I know.”

“It is unlikely you will return to Earth.”  

“I know,” he says again. “Good thing Earth already thinks I’m dead.” 

But not everyone. Rhodey doesn’t. 

They’re alright. They’ll be alright. 

If he doesn’t make it … Val will find a way to get through to them. Somehow. He knows they’re alright. They’re safe. They’re together.

Rhodey won’t give up. 

The thought makes his breath catch painfully in his throat. But - 

But if they fail, Earth will have even bigger threats ahead. Fights for War Machine. If that threat remains - they aren’t safe. No one is.

So they can’t fail. Even if that means not coming out.  

Gamora is still looking at him. He nods. “Flying into that portal - I assumed I was going to die. Wasn’t the first time. This is nothing new. I’ve known I was dying before. I was - I was supposed to die in a cave, years ago. All this? This is extra. And I know what I have to do with it.”

She nods, grim.  It  - that is far harder to accept.

“You can still - you can bow out. We can find a way,” he says, already knowing it’s absurd. “You could have a life.”

“Not while he lives.” She looks down. “And - I do not …” deserve it, he hears without her saying it, just watching her face.

“Well, you should have a life,” he says. “So we get in, kill him, get out, and - and you can have a life.”

“We are unlikely to succeed,” she says. “And if we do, the Black Order will still hunt us.”  

“Eh, the Black Order,” he says dismissively, with more confidence than he feels. “Besides, we’ve got a great strategy. You know, going in pretending to be a prisoner is a classic. Do you know Star Wars? Val didn’t know Star Wars -”

Gamora gives him a look, but there’s a glimmer of something lighter than despair in it, and that is enough.

Time to go.     

---

Rhodey had - well, eventually he realized he was just stomping and - now wandering throughout the helicarrier without direction. 

He had meant to talk to - hopefully not shout at - Dr. Banner anyway, based on Jarvis’s report on both the battle and Tony’s notes. And he had no better lead to follow than Rogers’ suggestion, as the man himself had apparently decided to be the one to go off stomping after a supposed god. 

(He can’t help thinking to himself ‘I’ve seen that Star Trek episode’, though those ‘gods’ had been Greek, not Norse.)

Eventually, with the direction of an agent who, thankfully and somewhat surprisingly, did not take the opportunity to march him off the boat - he finds his way to the labs.

He knocks on the doorframe of one, recognizing the face behind it from Jarvis’s report. “Dr. Banner.”

“Colonel Rhodes.”

“I was hoping to ask you -” Dr. Banner has an odd, slightly strained expression, and he pivots. “Actually - is there - uh - something I can help you with?” 

“Well, you seem to be having a go at yelling at everyone who was in New York during the attack, so I was wondering if it was my turn. Unless,” he adds. “You’re worried about the other guy.” 

He stops, leans back against the lab bench, staring at the floor. “Between shouting at Captain America and Director Fury, honestly, I should probably be more worried about the SHIELD agents than you.” He looks up at Banner. “I’m sorry, I’m not -”

“Usually this angry?” Banner says. “Or usually showing it?” He half-smiles, something pinched and self deprecating. “You’re not the one I’m worried about letting their anger out.”

Well. He has a point. 

Still. He’s supposed to be better at this - it’s not like he has other good options. His parents always taught him to sound measured, calm, give himself the best chance, and the world has done its best to tell him they were right. Even when Tony had been missing - taken - before - he’d kept his anger in check around his superior officers and his insubordination conveyed in steady tones. It’s hardly even something he has to think about at this point. Except now - 

He’d shouted at Fury and walking flag Captain America, every bit blindingly furious, he almost is surprised ‘Natalie’  or one of the other agents hadn’t stuck something in his neck and dumped him in a cell - or house arrest. It would be typical. 

“... I’m not here to yell at you,” he says, then adds a little more quietly, “I wasn’t really expecting to be - yelling at anyone when I came here.”

Banner just kind of chuckles at that. 

Rhodey looks at him again. There isn’t really a diplomatic way to ask how worried he should be about Banner letting his anger out and turning into a giant green rage monster, and apparently he’s not on a diplomatic track today, anyway. “Are you worried about the other guy?”

Banner looks at him for a moment, evaluating. “No, I think he’s had his time in the sun today,” he says, with a small shake of his head. 

Rhodey nods. “Looked like he made a good showing.”

Banner pauses, looking at him again. “He’s always there, you know,” Banner says, watching for a reaction. 

Whatever’s on his face, it apparently passes muster, because Banner continues, elaborating. “I’m used to being angry. So … I get it. Being angry at other people … that’s easier to burn out, most of the time. Being angry at yourself? Well, that’s a renewable source.”

He knows it, too, putting more of his weight against the lab bench as it sinks in, the sense of hollowness, like a tree struck by lightning and burned from the inside, dead and ashen even with last flames still licking at the bark. But the coals ignited beneath are not gone, nor has it gone cold.

Banner is looking at him. “I get it,” he says again. 

Rhodey lets out a breath. “You going to tell me it’s not my fault?”

Banner shrugs. “Would it help? Besides,” he adds, “it’d be a bit hypocritical of me.” 

His shoulders slump, just a little, to realize that he’s not the only one in the room who is blaming himself.

Banner looks at him, evaluating. “It helps that it doesn’t seem like you’re trying to get me thrown in a ‘secure lab’ somewhere, which makes you an outlier for the U.S. Military so far,” he says. 

Rhodey tries to keep the wince off of his face; a situation where he and other Air Force members were ordered to take out the Hulk was… all too plausible.

“What were you here for, then?” Banner asks.

“I wanted to ask for your help,” he starts, taking a breath, trying to brace himself for someone else to not believe him - and not to yell this time, “to find Tony.” 

Banner looks at him. “So you do think he could still be alive out there.”

He nods, lets out a breath. “Yeah. I do.”

Banner doesn’t challenge it, just nods slightly as well. “I don’t need to tell you that it’s improbable, but, frankly, more improbable things have happened today.” He shakes his head. “If I didn’t think it was possible - well, I would have made it out of here by now. Not that SHIELD wouldn’t be able to track me down again, but - this is the best set of resources for figuring out what happened.”

“That’s -” He hadn’t realized that Tony had made that much of an impression that quickly, though really, should he be surprised. “Thank you. I - well, I figure sticking around isn’t - isn’t an easy ask.”  

Banner just smiles, a little sadly.

“And - I’m glad I’m not the only one who hasn’t -” hasn’t given him up for dead.” He shakes his head slightly. “Well. I think most everyone else here thinks I’m crazy for wanting to look for him. But Ca - Rogers thought you might have ideas.”

“He was right about that.” Banner says, pulling up a screen.

He pinches the bridge of his nose as he moves over to look. “Rogers is talking to Thor, apparently. Which is a sentence I’m still not used to saying. I should probably - apologize, or something.” He shakes his head. “I got - out of line.”

“Yeah, that’s going around.” Banner says with a wry smile. “Tony didn’t exactly get along with him either.”

“That’s… not a surprise.” He says. 

“Dr. Selvig is - well, he should probably still be recovering, but he’s down the hall.” It takes him a moment to place the name. “If anyone knows about where that wormhole went to, or - or anything else, he’s probably most likely to be able to put it together. And Dr. Foster - I don’t know if she’s arrived already or if she’s still in transit, but she can probably help. Barton wasn’t in the loop on the space stuff when he was - ‘whammied’, but - I’m sorry, I don’t know how much you’ve been caught up on.”

“I got the call from Jarvis -” he looks at Banner, who nods, Tony must have mentioned his AI, “- as soon as my op was done. I talked to Pepper and then - I got in the first plane that could make the flight here. I’ve been -” he doesn’t actually know the last time he’s slept, and he’s not entirely sure what time his body thinks it is. “Jarvis relayed the footage from the suit he had from - from the fight here, and - before the connection closed. He tried to get me up to speed on the big picture, but …” he shakes his head. 

He needs to talk to Jarvis. Actually talk, not just - not just a sitrep and a download of the footage. He doesn’t know what’s going through the AI’s server’s right now, but Tony had always treated him - not like his namesake, but as though he had feelings, and so Rhodey did too. Admittedly, they both did that for Dum-E and U half the time anyway, but Mama always said it was better to show kindness to someone who wouldn’t appreciate it than not to show kindness to someone who needed it. 

And after all, he and Tony had watched a lot of The Next Generation.

“It’s a lot to catch up on,” Banner says. “They flew me here from India, the jetlag was - not great. You were -?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head. “I should have been here.”

‘Next time, you ride with me.’

“I was here, and -” Banner gestures as if to encompass the absence of another person in the lab.

God. He leans heavily on the lab bench, and after a moment, hears Banner’s voice as if from very far away. “Hey - here, you should - you should probably sit down.”

There’s a chair rolled towards him, he crumples into it. 

“You look shattered,” Banner says, and he looks up. “You - uh, you probably - hmm. Tony was keeping some snacks around here, they might still be here, actually -” a few drawers rattle as his brain is catching up with the words, and then -

There is a bag of dried blueberries in front of him, and he could be sitting in the lab, too late or too early, with Dum-E and U and Tony and his ridiculous, omnipresent snacks -

“Hey - hey, I’m sorry -”

He doesn’t know what Banner is apologizing for, tries to say ‘it’s fine’ but finds his throat too tight to speak. He clears his throat, blinks as the sight of the bag of blueberries - in his hands? How did they get there? - is suddenly blurry, his eyes hot again, but it’s not - it’s not the anger again, there isn’t the red edge, he should be able to - he scrubs at his face and finds his eyes are wet, and then Banner is back, holding out paper towels and a bottle of water.

“I couldn’t find tissues,” Banner says apologetically. He hesitates for a moment, then sets the bottle of water and paper towels on the lab bench next to him. 

Rhodey looks down and realizes his knuckles have gone pale from holding on to the bag of blueberries too tightly - like it’s the last damn food on Earth, or something. 

“Thank you,” he says reflexively, and then, “sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s been …” Banner trails away and shrugs. 

He opens the bag of blueberries and takes a handful - when had he last eaten? He can feel the sense of hunger coming back to him even as he takes the snack. He grabs a paper towel and scrubs at his face until it’s dry, opens the water and drinks. 

“You -” he starts finally, “you have - what have you been eating, after -”

“SHIELD cafeteria food, I think,” Banner says, with a dry huff of laughter. “They bring it up here, so I don’t freak people out.

“If it’s anything like MREs, I’ve got a good idea how unsatisfying it is.”

Banner chuckles. “I ate a lot of it.”

“Better or worse than airplane food?” Rhodey asks, grateful for some turn of normalcy in the conversation.

Banner shrugs. “I haven’t exactly been dining at five star restaurants before this.”

He looks around, and shakes his head again. “Listen, about this - working here - I don’t know all of the equipment you’ll need, but I can talk to Pepper, we can find you space in the tower to work, and stay - if you want. I don’t know about the others - ”

Banner laughs, but not unkindly. “You know, he offered me the same thing. Well, not to work on finding him, but…”

Rhodey smiles, for the first time in a while. “Yeah. That sounds like him.”

Banner looks at him. “How long have you two been friends?”

“Oh, decades at this point.”  

Banner nods. “Yeah…” he trails away, whatever else he was about to say left silent, and Rhodey wonders how much those decades show to someone who’s just met him.

“I appreciate the offer. From both of you,” Banner says, as Rhodey is briefly lost in wondering. “I know that’s not a small ask either,” he adds with a small, self deprecating huff of amusement.

“Trust me, I’m really not surprised Tony offered.”

Banner smiles, something tight and tired to it. “I - well, I’d been considering it. I would -” he shakes his head slightly. “I think I’ll - be fine here for now. But - if you wouldn’t mind talking to - er - Ms. Potts. I’d appreciate it.”

“Of course,” he says. He needs to talk to Pepper soon, anyway - he hasn’t - hasn’t had a chance, yet. God. 

“There’s a lot already set up here. And with Dr. Selvig, and Dr. Foster - well, there are other people who might be able to work things out who are set up here, or are going to be. And we’ll see what Thor and the other - Asgardians, are able to find out from Loki.” He shakes his head slightly, eyebrows raised. “I’m not used to those sentences either, and I’ve spent the past few years able to turn into a giant green rage monster. But he’s the guy who we’ll need to actually get to - wherever Tony is, unless Fury has some extra wormhole generators in the basement.”

Rhodey snorts. “Sounds like it wouldn’t be the only thing in Fury’s basement.”

Banner lets out a huff, not quite laughter. “Well, I’ve smashed through a decent portion of this place, so I guess we’ll see. They still let me back on, though, so I doubt anyone will give you trouble for the shouting.”

He smiles, wry. “I hope not.” He finishes the water, stands up. “I do need to go talk to Pepper, and Jarvis,” and Happy, and probably half a dozen people at the Air Force - “You got a way to keep in touch? I’ll be back, but -”

Banner holds up an ancient looking, slightly battered flip phone.

“Oh, I know Tony didn’t see that because he would have replaced it with a StarkPhone in a second,” Rhodey says, and Banner laughs. 

Banner taps a number into Rhodey’s StarkPhone - Jarvis probably has already figured out five backdoors to contact him anyway, but he should take it anyway - and James has a fit of nostalgia putting contacts into the old flip phone, “This will get you me, and this will get you Jarvis, who can get you just about anyone else.”

“Thanks,” Banner says, taking his phone back.

“Thank you, for -” whatever he had been about to say, the words don’t coalesce. He looks at the bag of dried blueberries that he’d set down on the lab bench. 

“You should take those, actually,” Banner says, and Rhodey looks up at him. “I mean, SHIELD food isn’t that bad, and I’m pretty sure I haven’t found a third of the snacks he’s got in here. There’s a bag of almonds I’ve found already, and I’m half expecting to open a drawer and see a box of chocolates.

Rhodey laughs, and picks up the bag, struck by unexpected reassurance. “Yeah, that checks out. Thank you, Dr. Banner.” 

“You can just call me Bruce,” he says, “If you don’t mind me dropping the ‘Colonel’.”

He extends his free hand. “James. But Tony always calls me Rhodey, so I’m used to it.”

Bruce smiles. “Yeah, I got that.”

He shakes his head and laughs. Tony. 

He gathers himself to leave the lab, is halfway to the door before he stops.

He turns, “You do think he could be alive?” he finds himself asking.

Bruce pauses, looks at him, and nods slowly. He sighs, and takes his glasses off for a moment. “Tony - he thought the - the other guy saved my life from the start. Like the arc reactor keeps him alive. That there was a responsibility with it. Not the same thing, but -”

Rhodey thinks about the smoking, pitted metal drawn from that reactor in Tony’s chest, the creeping, unnatural patterns, the horror in realizing it had been slowly killing, poisoning him. 

He thinks Tony understands better than Bruce might suspect, being kept alive by something dangerous; destructive.  

“What for - well, maybe we just saw that. The other guy’s day in the sun. I -” He rubs his forehead, puts his glasses back on. “I think - I think he still has more to do. More to come back for,” he says, looking at Rhodey, before glancing away. “Maybe it -” he gestures to his chest again, “or - or something else, it’ll keep him alive. I know it’s improbable,” he adds, “I know all that - it’s just nice sentiment. Maybe it’s too much to hope for another good break. But - at least I can try.”

“ We can,” he says firmly, and Bruce looks up, and then nods. “Thank you. I - needed to hear that from someone else, I guess.”

Bruce nods with a small, tired smile.

“Call if you - if there’s anything. Or if there’s anything you need,” he says, and waits to see Bruce nod again before leaving the lab.

---

The survival of Tony Stark after the wormhole had closed behind him is certainly one of many improbable things. It is far from guaranteed; in the many universes in which he has been left on that side of the wormhole, he dies within hours.

More improbable still, in a universe where he has survived that point, then in which he befriends Gamora, and in which she to chooses to face Thanos - among all those universes in which that improbable sequence of events occurs, only a fraction of those do they survive to come face to face with the Mad Titan himself.

And beyond that, the improbability of the two of them slaying Thanos…

But they haven’t faced Thanos yet. As this time has passed on Earth, Tony Stark hasn’t even felt a second pass in his fall through space and time.

We have seen ahead. We have seen the confrontation. And we can look further ahead still…  

---

He tries not to look at the mildly gruesome purple puddle - purple? he had definitely not expected him to be purple - spreading beside them.

Instead, he follows Gamora’s gaze to the object that has not melted; the massive double-bladed sword - did it even qualify as a sword at this point? The blades were so wide it looked like two giant butcher’s cleavers stuck end to end, which he supposes was fitting. 

Gamora was staring at it with the sort of look that could melt lead. 

“He would not be parted from it,” she says, and then adds, subdued. “He once promised me that one day I would wield as fine a weapon. It was a lie; I was always the weapon.”

“Take it,” he says, abruptly. 

She looks at him. He doesn’t know why he said it so vehemently, except he does, because fuck being a tool to - to people who should have loved you.

“You said it yourself, he wouldn’t let it go. You have it, there’s your proof that you killed him.”

She picks it up, weighing the hilt in her hands. “Some will … will not trust it. Will believe it is part of the test, that he has given his favorite weapon to his favorite weapon, to test the loyalty of his ranks.”

“Listen, if people really don’t want to believe, then they won’t. Trust me. Truth is, you won. He lost. You want the sword? Take it.”  

She looks at the two gleaming blades, tightens her grip on the hilt until her knuckles go pale. “We must go.”

“Right. Yeah. Let’s go - let’s go get your sister.”  

---

Rhodey is barely steps outside the door to the lab when he notices that he’s being watched. He doesn’t stop walking, and his watcher - well, one of them - falls into step next to him.

“So you were listening to that,” he says, and Natalie Rushman, or Natasha Romanoff, or whatever her name was, raises an eyebrow.  

“You here to tell me Fury won’t let anyone take Banner off his ship? No, ‘cause you’re not about sharing information, are you? So what is it? Fury’s mad that Rogers is -” helping me? Not waiting for his orders?

She looks at him steadily. “Rogers may have given the order but I closed the portal. I did that. And I'd do it again. It was the right choice.” 

So maybe his conversation with Bruce hadn’t been the only one she’d been listening to. “If you’re worried about Rogers - look, if you were listening to that conversation, you know you should worry about him, but not because of me .” He sighs. “I - look, I was already going to apologize to Rogers. I didn't need to bring out being pissed at a guy who's been dead a few decades on a guy who's been on ice a lot longer. And he's helping. Unless Fury is trying to put a stop to that.”  

“Fury has other things to do.”

He snorts. “I'm just surprised you didn't drop out of the dark corner you were listening from while I was at it, jab me in the neck, put me on house arrest. The usual for you - I'm sorry, what name am I supposed to call you now?”

She crosses her arms. “Agent Romanoff will do fine.”

“Right. Agent.” He says. “You gonna change anything else up, start telling me anything else useful? Some secret tracking device you stuck in Tony? Or do you want to mention that something else was killing him before he even flew into the portal?”  

“You really are angry,” she says, a casual observation.

“Yeah, I am. Is that a surprise to you, Agent Romanoff?” he snaps. “You want me to tell you I’m not mad at you for being the one to close the portal? You know what, I’m not. It probably was the right call. If anything, I’m surprised you gave him as much time as Jarvis says you did.” She tilts her head; did she know about Jarvis? She spied on Tony, she must. “You’ve been happy to leave him out to dry before. Watch everything, but can’t get you to do something.”  

“No, I don’t do much. I only freed you from the control of your suit that would have made you kill him.”

Her tone is mild, and still he takes a step back. He looks down at his hands - his hands, clenching into fists of his own accord, no metal grip pushing against every flinch like he was a puppet.

He snorts, shakes his head, forces himself to step forward again as he snaps back. “‘Cause that’s what you do, watch and watch and swoop in at the last second.”

She looks at him, considering. “Are you mad at me for not telling you he was dying? Or are you mad at him for not telling you?” She tilts her head. “Or are you mad at yourself for not figuring it out first?” 

“You -” he snarls. He can feel the ache in his muscles, the grinding of his teeth as he holds himself as he’s seeing red -

- too close to home.

“I don’t - blame anyone, much less my best friend, for the shit they do while being slowly poisoned. You on the other hand -” he says between gritted teeth. “Doesn’t matter what you think you saw. You don’t know anything about me. Or him.” He snaps.  

“I know you have to be better than this.”

He recognizes that he’s thought the same thing, only minutes ago. 

Doesn’t mean she gets to tell him his shit.

“As far as Jarvis can tell me, yesterday all of you were about at each other's throats. So why do I have to be better? When do I not have to be better than -”

“I don't know. But you do.” She almost manages to sound sympathetic.

“Why? So Fury will be satisfied with his preferred Iron Man? You think this is going to let him finally poach me away from the Air Force?” He snorts. “Or does this,” he adds, “change your evaluation?”

“It wasn't my assignment to evaluate you, but,” she allows, “it is useful to know Steve Rogers can push your buttons when he’s barely doing anything more than standing there.”

“Oh please, he had -”

“I already knew Tony Stark can push your buttons, and if he can -”

“We've been friends for decades, of course he can.”

She looks at him flatly. “He gave you the suit he wanted you to have in the first place, and he made you think you were taking it so he could push you away.” 

He stares at her -

he wanted you to have in the first place

“And now you wish you had been in that suit so you'd be up there in space, she continues, “and he wouldn't.”

He steps back, puts one hand against the wall like he’d been punched. 

“Don't take it out on the people here.” She stands conclusively. 

He looks at the floor, shaking his head. “You…”

“I know some things,” she says. “Don't you think there are things I know I deserve to die for? More than you. I've got red in my ledger.” There’s almost a self-deprecating humor, of all things, as she says it. “We don't always get to choose where we end up. We have to face what's in front of us. And,” she adds, “you're doing yourself no favors shouting at everyone.”

He looks up.

“Especially if you want to launch a mission into deep space for someone everyone thinks is dead.”

“Not everyone.”

“I closed the portal,” she says. “I have... I want to believe that didn't kill him.” She shakes her head. “And I’d like to believe Phil Coulson isn't dead. But he is.” She looks him in the eye. “I'm a trained liar. I try not to lie to myself.”

“You're wrong,” he says, and hears how hoarse his voice sounds, “and I'll prove it.”

“I hope you do,” she says, and he could almost believe her. “I'd like to be wrong, this time.”

He takes a breath, takes his hand off the wall, stands up straight. “I’m leaving. I'm going to talk to Pepper. You gonna follow me and listen to that too?”

“Would you believe me if I said no?”

“No.”

“Then it doesn’t matter, does it?”

He stalks away without answering.

---

In countless universes, Natasha Romanoff is not wrong.

Tony Stark’s survival in universes where the wormhole closed behind him is improbable. In countless universes, James Rhodes’ faith that his friend is alive is fruitless, hopeless, since the moment the wormhole closed, since before he even had word of the battle.

In countless universes, Phil Coulson never wakes up from Project TAHITI.

Just the same: in countless universes, Tony Stark dies in Afghanistan. Dies as a result of the injuries from the attack on the convoy; dies in the cave; dies long before any search could be mounted. In countless universes, James Rhodes’ months of continued searching is just as futile and senseless as his commanding officers - as the soldiers following his orders - as the world around him believes it is

But those universes are not this universe. 

We know, in this universe, Tony Stark is alive, and within days will be setting out, aiming for Earth.

But James Rhodes has not seen what we have seen. And neither has Virginia Potts. 

Neither has the artificial sapience, JARVIS, who greets Colonel Rhodes at Stark Tower. 

Here, hope is still a leap of faith.

For these three, who carry the memories of those months of searching, years ago, those memories easily swallow them again. 

James Rhodes and Virginia Potts hold on to each other, and she listens to a voice she heard so many times from the other end of a telephone in Afghanistan, telling her again that there is still hope left. 

Later, there will be questions, there will be aftermath of the damage to the city of New York, there will be press, with cameras streaming footage that will reach Tony Stark on Sakaar. 

But here and now, there is none of that. And so here, they will hold on to hope as they hold on to each other.

They will, again, hold on to hope till the last, even to bloody fingernails.

---

---

He sees the sheen of metal, the dull flecks of dried blood before he registers anything else.

The woman on the slab is conscious, and starts to push herself upright at the sight of them. “Gamora -” she starts, in a credible impression of a snarl if her voice hadn’t cracked with pain. 

Gamora stops - just for a moment.

“Not to interrupt the family reunion, but we do have places to be -”

“Who - no. This is the - the one Father sent you for,” Nebula - because she must be Nebula - says. “You’re late.” 

And he’d made Nebula pay for it, Tony thinks, with a chill on the back of his neck. 

“Why did he have you bring the prisoner here ?” Her eyes seem to catch on the light of the arc reactor in his chest. “He does not mean to -”

“Ah, hi, to clear up a few points.” He gestures to himself, despite Gamora shooting him a stop talking now look - let’s be honest, he wasn’t in the habit of paying attention to those before and he wasn’t about to start now - “Not a prisoner, Thanos is dead. And -” he doesn’t even have his armor on to have a helmet to take off, which is a shame - “I’m Tony Stark, I’m here to rescue you.”

The next word shakes the metal instruments on their trays.

“ WHAT?!”

Chapter Text

Time.

Though I exist outside of it, time’s passage, however distorted, however strange, is inexorable for those bound to it. 

In the story I am telling, in this universe, a story of a few people, a few corners of a galaxy which would change the whole forever - time has passed. 

Time enough for stories within the story to spread; of the death of Thanos, of his assassin and her iron armored companion who brought his end. Ripples across the galaxy, reaching other realms…

And for those on Earth, more time has passed. When last we left them in our story, it had not even been a matter of days since the wormhole had closed on Earth; and Tony Stark had still been falling through distorted time. 

Now - those on Earth have waited, those few holding on to hope, as Tony Stark landed on Sakaar and the metal mojo man freed the planet, for the long travel for Gamora and Tony Stark to face Thanos, to find Nebula, and to make their escape. 

Now - the two journeys, in space and on Earth, come together in time. More or less.

Now - those stories of the warriors who defeated Thanos are still spreading across the galaxy…

---

Rhodey looks up from where he’s been studying schematics at the sound of rotors whirring. “Hey, kiddo,” he says to Dum-E, who’s holding out a smoothie. “Thanks, but not right now.” Even all these years after the MIT labs where Dum-E and U had been built, they’d still never got them to the point where they could be completely confident the robots’ smoothies would be free of motor oil. 

Dum-E warbles forlornly. “No, hey, I appreciate it, I’m just not hungry.” Dum-E sets the smoothie down and then nudges him. “Hey, it’s okay,” he pats Dum-E on the mechanical claw. Dum-E warbles again. “I know, I miss him too. We’ll get him back soon, alright? Just like last time, huh? Hey -” U comes whirring over across the lab, whistling. “Hey, hey, I’ve got two hands, alright, you can both get pats.”

Tony always says the bots know he’s the sucker, and Tony’s not entirely wrong. 

“These two been causing trouble in the lab, Jarvis?”

“No, Colonel Rhodes, they have been quite quiet apart from your visits. I believe you are correct in inferring that they are… unused to Mr. Stark’s absence.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says, “yeah. And you? You still holding up alright?”

“As ever, Colonel Rhodes.” 

Keep calm and carry on, as ever. Rhodey gives a tight lipped smile and shakes his head slightly. “Yeah.”

“I believe Ms. Potts wished to speak with you. She is approaching the lab now.”

“Thanks, Jarvis.”

As Jarvis predicted, Pepper steps into the lab moments later, and then stops at the sight of Rhodey surrounded by the two bots. She smiles. “Well, I guess they're glad to have their other dad here.”

Rhodey actually manages a chuckle. It’s good to see Pepper smile. 

“Jarvis said you had something -?”

She shakes her head slightly. “I wanted to check on you.”

“Well, as long as I don’t drink Dum-E’s smoothies, I think I’ve got nothing to fear in the lab.”

“As long as you eat something ,” she says, lightly teasing as she walks over. Dum-E begrudgingly moves out of the way for her. “Honestly, I needed a break myself. It’s - better, being busy, but…”

Better being busy than with long enough moments for the weight and weariness of waiting to sink in -

- but Pepper’s not waiting, not really.

‘I can’t do this again,’ she’d told him, her voice breaking, and he hated how it echoed his own thoughts. ‘I - we got him back once. We - it's not going to happen a second time. I can’t -’    

‘I’ll get him back.’ 

The mixture of pity and grief in her eyes when she’d looked at him, landing like cold water thrown over his head - that was a look he’d never be able to forget.

‘You can’t fly a helicopter into space, Jim.’

‘So I’ll build a rocket,’ he’d said, and she’d let out a little hiccup of laughter. ‘I’ll get him back. I’ll get him back to you.’

The hiccup of laughter had broken into a sob, and she’d leaned into his shoulder. ‘I can’t do this again, Jim. I have to be able to let him go. I have to … I can’t do this again, I can’t .’

  She leans into his shoulder now. “I keep getting asks for quotes, for - pieces. About him.” 

Memoriam pieces, he hears her avoid saying, for his sake. Whatever thin thread of hope she carries in her pockets, twined around a finger, she carries it for his sake, he thinks, more than hers.

And he can’t be angry with her for it, could hardly think of shouting at her for not believing, for the doubt that overtakes that thin shred of hope. Because she loves Tony. She knows Tony. And they know this, together.

They have done this before.

To do it again -

“At least now they’re dealing with the CEO of Stark Industries,” she says, in an attempt at lightness, though the memory of SI’s CEO last time was painful for both of them. “And I have a secretary. And of course Happy handles the worst of the paparazzi. The industry statements, I can do, but…”

He puts an arm around her shoulder, and she lets out a long sigh.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says finally, pressed into his side. “I know… it’s just. It’s better than just having your voice on the phone.”

He gently wraps his arm more tightly around her shoulders. He remembers those phone calls; even as the days started to blur together, even as the words he had left to say could hardly change, those phone calls -

He remembers those phone calls.

And he tries not to wince at the thought of this last phone call - 

She had played it for him. Tony’s message. 

‘I should have just checked -’ she’d wiped her eyes after the message had clicked off, ‘I should have just picked up.’

And some part of him couldn’t help but wish - still wishes - that Tony had called him, that it had routed through to the helmet, that he would have heard it no matter what. That he would have had a chance to say - something. 

But he’d never say that out loud. Not to Pepper. 

‘He called it a one way trip,’ she had said. ‘Jim, he knew…’

And Jarvis, not there but always present, Jarvis, who had lost the connection to Tony only moments after that call - Jarvis said nothing at all. 

‘He thought he was on his way out last year,’ he’d said, ‘didn’t make him right.’

She’d wiped at her eyes again, and - god, they didn’t all need more guilt. 

‘He’s always made miracles when it counts,’ he’d said, ‘and if -’ ‘if’ he’d allowed, for her, ‘if there’s any way he’s still out there, I’ll find him, and I’ll bring him back.’

She’d looked at him, and nodded, just a small dip of the head, but that was all the hope he could ask for, the only faith he needed.   

Now, he leans in, and dips his head so it rests against hers. She tightens her grip in return, and for a few long moments they just hang on to each other. 

“Pardon me, Ms Potts, Colonel Rhodes,” Jarvis says, sounding apologetic for the interruption. 

Pepper steps back. “Yes, Jarvis, what is it?”

“A call from Captain Rogers,” Jarvis says. “I believe you will both wish to hear from him. It appears there is news from Thor.”

---

“You will not keep me restrained like this for long!”

“Okay, blue meanie, you’re only staying in there until you stop trying to kill both of us.”

“You will both die, for keeping me from my duty to -”

“Don’t know how many times I’m gonna say it, but Thanos is dead, you don’t have duties to anyone anymore.”

Nebula spits. “I will kill you slowly , for your lies about my father.” 

“No lies, just the truth. Ask your sister.”

“Oh yes, my sister, who cares so much -”

Gamora shakes her head, leaning against the wall. “Nebula is stubborn. You shouldn’t bother trying to convince her now.”

“ You will pay most of all for your lies and betrayal.”

“I betrayed no one,” Gamora says. “I only stopped betraying myself. And you.”

“You betrayed our father -”

“I saved us from Thanos!”

“So you’ll still claim that you killed him? That you could? If you had killed Thanos, the galaxy would know - the galaxy will still know of your lies -”

“Okay, well, we’ll see about getting you hooked up with some galactic news in there, but in the meantime, how about some food?”

Nebula glares at the tray slid in to her room, but she doesn’t slam it into the wall, which he will take as a small win in their favor.

Her words do stay with him, though. He can’t help but wonder where news of Thanos’s death is spreading… 

---

“He’s - he’s alive.”

He’s believed it all this time, but the words still come out of him with a shock. 

Thor nods gravely, as they stand gathered on the bridge of the SHIELD helicarrier. “Every story that Heimdall has heard from across the realms tells that the man of iron and the assassin killed Thanos and left alive.”

“Who is Thanos?” Pepper asks, her grip tight on Rhodey’s arm. 

Thor’s face darkens. “Thanos… we in Asgard have long believed he was merely a story told to frighten. But Loki…” Thor bows his head, looking solemn. “Loki has confirmed that he was working for this Thanos, and that Thanos provided the Chitauri armies that struck against Midgard.”

Steve frowns. “So he’s the one who was really behind it.”

“And Tony took him out.” Rhodey says. “With this - assassin?”

Thor nods. “It is said that she was a previous… lieutenant of Thanos. Loki has spoken of his lieutenants. There are many.”

Pepper lets out a little gasp. 

“You think they’ll come after him,” Rhodey says, at almost exactly the same time Steve says, “so he’s in danger.” 

Thor nods again. “Asgardians and our allies across the realms are looking for him, and Heimdall continues to watch.”

“But they haven’t seen him yet.”

“That need not be a cause for fear. It is wise for him to keep hidden from prying eyes.” 

---

“She’s got a point about the galaxy,” Tony says. “No sign of any of Thanos’s Black Order on our tail?”

“We seem to have successfully eluded them so far.”

“It’s funny, though. Hiding in a nebula with a Nebula.”

Gamora looks at him flatly. 

“Okay, maybe that doesn’t translate. See, her name is -”

“It is not a problem with translation.”

“Wow. Cold.” he follows Gamora down the hall. “Eventually, we’re going to have to get out of this nebula - and hopefully get Nebula out of her room - but we’re going to have to get out of this nebula for me to get home. So what are we doing, is there a transponder on this ship we can switch out, is there a cloaking device - can I make a cloaking device? My armor should be able to cloak, if the Helicarrier can do it -”

“I have some ideas,” Gamora says. “I’m used to avoiding prying eyes.”

---

“The Asgardians aren’t the only people looking,” Fury says, striding out onto the helicarrier bridge. “We have a SHIELD contact keeping her eyes out.”

“You have a SHIELD contact in space?” Rhodey starts. “And you’re only telling us this now?”

He glances at Romanoff, who hasn’t overtly reacted but seems marginally less than nonplussed - which might explain why Fury seems to direct his next remarks to her. “Before your time. Coulson met her,” he says. “She’s been on the other side of the galaxy since.”

“Since - when the hell did you call her? For the alien invasion -”

Fury shakes his head. “If she’d been close enough to do anything, she would have done it.”

“So what, now that Thor says he’s alive, you -” he stares at Fury. “No. You called her after the portal closed.”

“She was the contact we had, and there was a chance.” 

“You’re telling me,” Rhodey hears his own voice rising, “all this time - you thought there was a chance, you were -”

Fury looks at him, and for a moment Rhodey almost thinks there’s something he’s not saying. Then again, he’s a super spy or whatever, so when is there not something he’s not saying? 

“I told Danvers to keep an eye and an ear out,” Fury says. “Doesn’t mean I thought anything would come of it. And it wasn’t a reason to raise anyone’s hopes. Not that you needed the help,” he says, looking at Rhodey.

It’s Pepper who speaks. “You -” she starts, stepping forward, her hands clenched in fists, knuckles white as bone, like she’s gripping a strand of hope so tightly her fingers will bleed. Fury looks at her and doesn’t blink. “You had no right,” she says, and it is a quiet hiss of bitter rage.

He’s sure as hell not going to try to hold Pepper back from tearing Fury a new one - he doesn’t want to, and he wouldn’t be stupid enough to try if he did. But he does look around to see if any agents - or anyone else - is about to give Pepper any trouble. 

When Captain America steps forward, he has a moment to worry that they’re about to play out some Army-Air Force rivalries right then. But - 

“Miss Potts is right,” Steve says, and there’s the anger that was missing - not like the fog is gone but like the cloud has sent out a bolt of lightning -

- and yes the comparison is pretty absurd standing right next to a supposed thunder god. 

“We deserved to know the full picture.” Steve continues. “If there's a chance for one of our team -” 

“Captain, I don’t think you have any idea how far away you are from knowing the full picture.”

“So - what?” Rhodey cuts in, not ready to put up with any more bullshit superspy double-talk. “Does she know where he is? Has she found him?”

“No. But she’s looking.”

Rhodey scrubs a hand across his face and stares at Fury, then at Thor. “I need to get out there.”

“Friend Rhodes, that would not be wise,” Thor says. “You are not Asgardian, and you do not know the realms beyond your own.”

“I know Tony.”

 ---

Knock.

Knock knock. 

Knock knock knock. 

“Listen, you know by now I’m just going to keep doing this,” Tony says.

“What do you want, Stark?”

“You said the galaxy would know if we had killed Thanos,” he passes a tablet through the door. “Here’s the galaxy knowing.”

The moments drag on. And on. As Nebula watches the screen. 

“Why,” she asks at long last, “why would you bring me this? Why would you bring me proof you killed my father?!”

“Because I did kill your father,” Tony says. “After he had his people invade my planet and try to kill everyone in their way, including me. And after he’d done some frankly horrible shit to you and Gamora and apparently a lot of the rest of the galaxy. But still. He had it coming, but I did still kill your dad. And we’re not going to get anything done if you don’t believe that.”

She slams her fist into the door. “I will kill you for this.”

“Yeah, trying to kill us is kinda why you’re in there.”

“I will get out of here.”  

“Yeah. You will. Can’t keep you in there forever. You’re right about that,” he says. “So what’s it gonna take?”

“What?”

“For you to come out of there, without trying to kill either of us.”

“You think I can be bought -?” Her fist pounds against the door. 

“No - no. And I mean,” he adds with a shrug, “I don’t think any of my money is any good in space if you were inclined to take it.”

“So what -”

“Look, clearly I don’t get space stabby culture, whatever Klingon honor thing you have.”

“What are Klingons?”

“From an Earth - doesn’t matter. Point is, I killed your dad. You probably do deserve a shot at me. Doesn’t seem unfair.”  

“This is a trick.”

“Look, if we’re ever all going to go on our merry way and all get off this ship in one piece there’s a multiplying series of problems that need to be solved, and every one of them I can do something about while we’re stuck here - in this nebula, irony for you. No? Okay, same sense of humor as your sister. Point is, I’ve done what I can about every problem except this one, and being on house arrest sucks.”

“You would not simply let me kill you.”

“Well yeah, no, not going to just give you a gun to point at my head, and that probably wouldn’t satisfy your honor anyway. But you and me, Klingon warrior shit, no armor, no - whatever’s in that arm of yours. Fight me until your honor is satisfied.”

This is either a calculated risk based on what little Nebula has said aloud and what more Gamora has told him of their circumstances, or idiotically walking into a death trap. Which, admittedly, ‘calculated risk or idiotic’ covers a lot of his life choices up to this point.

“And?”

“And you stop trying to kill the people who got you out of the damn Frankenstein lab down there, so you get to come out of your room.”

She stares at him, and finally nods. 

The odds of ‘calculated risk’ versus ‘idiotic’ seems to be rapidly tipping towards ‘idiotic’ as he sees Nebula move, rage practically humming under her skin, but - well, committed now. Cat, bag, etcetera.

Or maybe the bull out of the barn, he amends as she paces in front of him in the loading bay. There’s a cold assessment behind the rage, though he can’t imagine it takes that long to pull up ‘wildly out of his depth’.   

He’s lucky to dodge once, hands up to protect his face like Happy would always remind him. He doesn’t manage to dodge twice. 

“How?” she shouts, after another blow lands. “You are weak! How could you strike down Thanos?” He dodges, and then another blow lands. “Is there nothing to you but tricks?”

“Yeah, that about covers it.” 

“You! You killed the Titan?!” Her foot lands on his chest and knocks the wind out of him, sending him staggering back across the floor. “ You destroyed the one who would balance the universe?”

“You fighting me for the universe?” he asks, doing his best to stand up and hope his ribs are roughly as intact as they were when they started. “Or because he was your father?”

She screams, lunging at him and sending him careening to the floor, and then her fists are swinging down at his face. “You! Killed! My! Father!” She punctuates the words with blows. 

“I killed your father!” She punches him again. “ Who killed your mother?!” 

It doesn’t stop her from another punch, but she hesitates instead of following it up with a second. “What?” she snarls, fist still clenched.

“Who killed your mother?” Nebula stares, in shock or confusion, he doesn’t know. 

Oh god, he’s invoked the biology of Vulcans. Except blue. The biology of blue aliens he actually hadn’t asked the name of yet. Was she the same species as Gamora just - and Thanos being purple - okay, Thanos wasn’t biologically either of their fathers, but they could be the same species - was there a whole rainbow species out there? - not important. 

“Unless you sprang fully formed from Thanos’s head like a cyborg Athena, you had at least one other parent - someone who gave birth to you, or - or hatched you from an egg -”

She screams, and punches him in the face again. Something cracks. 

He raises one arm to try and protect his face, and she doesn’t seem to notice, slamming a fist into his arm. 

“I had no mother!” She screams. “No father but Thanos!” 

“Why!?” He shouts back. “Why didn’t you have a mother?!”

“She was weak! She was never my - my - !” She snarls, and a fist lands on his cheek. 

“Who took her from you!? Who killed her!?”

“He took me from her weakness ,” she shouts with the fury of a true believer on the verge of cracking, “and made me stronger!”

“And who killed her!?”

“She died because she was weak! Too weak to live! Too weak to survive!” She screams. “He saw strength in me and she was weak!”

“Who killed her?!”

“Her death was balance!”

“And who did it? Who killed her?! Who made it happen!?” Tony tastes blood. “Who?! Who is the reason your mother is dead?!

“ Who killed your mother?!”

  “THANOS!” 

Her fist is raised, careening down towards his face, but instead it slams into the floor, as Nebula gasps for breath. 

The moments drag on; eventually it seems that she isn’t about to punch him again.

He taps the floor twice.

“Look at that. You won.”

She stares, wide eyed, and scrambles backward, until she’s on her feet, away from Tony. “What -”

“You won.”

She looks around, hands still up, like she’s waiting for a trap to spring around her. “I - I should -”

“You won.” Tony doesn’t try to get up, lays back and stares at the ceiling. “My father… my father killed my mother. Not - not like yours. He didn’t - he didn’t do it with his own hands, or order someone else too. But - he got behind the wheel of the car she was in when he was drunk, and he crashed it, and he killed her,” Tony says. “No court would have convicted Howard Stark, and it didn’t matter since he killed himself right along with her… but. But. It matters, why she died. Who killed Maria Stark.” He turns his head to look at her, more blood dripping out of his nose. “Who killed your mother.” 

Nebula sniffs. “I don’t remember her name.”

“She was your mom,” he says. “You remembered that.”

There’s a long moment where there’s no sound but Nebula’s ragged breathing, and Tony trying to make sure he can still breathe, through the blood and bruised ribs.

Then - footsteps.

“Stark, Nebula’s room - what happened here?”

Tony waves a hand in the air from where he is still lying on the floor. “Clearing the air. Over the whole ‘killing dad’ thing.”

“So what? You just let her beat you up?”

“Well, it was kind of more of an honorable fight thing…” he says, trailing off into a mumble, as Gamora looks at him with clearly apparent knowledge of just how full of shit he is.

Gamora looks at Nebula. “I fought Thanos too, and I fired the killing blow.”

“Yeah, but she’s not going to keep trying to kill you about that. Right, Nebula? That’s the deal.”

There is a moment where it’s not clear whether Nebula has heard her own name. Then she looks at Gamora. “He - Thanos - killed your mother too. Your - your parents.”

It’s not a question. Gamora answers anyway, a slightly puzzled frown on her face. “... Yes.”

Nebula takes a deep breath and nods. “I will not kill you. I will honor my agreement with this one.”

Gamora looks between them. “Alright,” she says, finally. “I need to get ‘this one’ medical attention.” 

As Gamora helps him down the corridor, she sighs. “I won’t even bother to catalogue how many ways you’ve been idiotic.”

“Many have tried,” he says, and doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s rolling her eyes. 

“Sit,” she says, and he does.

He would have hoped that medical technology out in space was more like Star Trek, scan you with a tricorder, stick you with a hypospray, ta-dah. With the real deal, the scanning part isn’t so bad, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to end up with a bunch of cold packs and pills anyway. Still better than Earth. Not sure if it’s better than going the other Star- direction getting dunked in a tank of goo in his underwear like Luke Skywalker. 

“She had more right to fight me.” Gamora says eventually.

“Yeah, sounds like you’d both gotten enough of that.”

“What if she’d killed you?”

“I knew she wouldn’t,” he says, then corrects himself. “I hoped she wouldn’t.”

Gamora looks at him for a moment, then asks. “And if she had?”

“Then I’d be dead. What? Everyone on Earth already thinks I’m dead.”

“Don’t compound your idiocy,” Gamora says. “You saw that the galaxy knows of Thanos’s death, that word has spread that it was done by a daughter of Thanos and a man of iron. The galaxy knowing does not exclude your world, backward as it may be.” She allows Tony a moment to consider this. “You claimed you had an Asgardian amongst your allies.”

“... Huh.”

She shakes her head. “How are you still alive?”

“You know, I ask myself that on a regular basis.”

---

“- we know he’s still alive out there, I’m not just chasing -”

“That’s not the point -”

“That has to be the point! What else is the point!?” Rhodey says. “Of all the people in there, I thought you would have my back, Pepper. What the hell happened?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Jim, a space god said it was a bad idea, so maybe -”

“They’re not - they’re aliens, just like the others -”

“They’re from space - there -”

“That means I can -”

“ - and Tony got tangled up in that - them - and he ended up flying through a portal and nearly dying on the other side of space -”

“And I need to get him back! I can -”

“I encouraged him! All of this - this Avengers - these - SHIELD and gods and aliens - I had his back, and -”

“Pepper, he’s alive -”

“What am I supposed to tell your family if you - you go with these - these space alien gods and - and you don’t come back -”

“They know I -”

“You think they’d want you to do this? You think your parents - your sister, your niece -”

“ - I might not have come back from the desert, Pepper - the Air Force -”

“This is different!”

“And that was different! That wasn’t just another mission! I needed to - I need to -”

“To what? To get flung to the other side of space, when we don’t even know -”

“I can find him - you know I can find him -”

“It’s space, Jim - god.” Pepper slumps into a chair. “You - there are already people looking. People who live in -” she waves a hand. “You can’t - you can’t throw yourself away like this.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Dammit, Jim, do you think it would be any better if we had lost you through that thing?”

He bites back his immediate reaction of - of yes. Dammit. “We haven’t lost him - I can get him back to you -”

“To - Jim.” She looks at him. “I know you love him as much as I do. And he - we - What am I supposed to do if -” she shakes her head and lets out an incredulous laugh “- if Thor - god, when did our lives become this - if Thor brings him home, or - or Fury’s space agent , and I have to tell him we - we lost you in space too.” 

Rhodey - sits down slowly. “That won’t happen,” he says quietly. “I’ll - I’ll go with Thor. I’ll bring him back. I know him,” he says. “And - you’re right. I want to get him back as much as you do.”

Pepper looks at him, and then lets out a long breath, burying her face in her hands. “You’d think - you’d think this would be easier. Knowing he’s alive. After thinking that - that we’d lost him. And now - I’m terrified that we’ll lose him to - to these space aliens that might be hunting him, that I know nothing about.”

Rhodey reaches out, puts a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to be. Let me go get him. I’ll get him back, before -”

She reaches up and grabs his hand. “ I can’t lose you.” She looks at him. “James. I can’t lose you either,” she says. “I don’t - I don’t want to lose you.”

He stares for a moment, before silently squeezing her hand in return.

“He - Tony has alien gods and space agents looking for him. He - he’s made it this far. He’ll get home,” Pepper says, as much to herself as him. “Just - stay,” she continues, “please.”

Rhodey lets out a long breath. “They - they don’t have any strong leads on looking for him, right now. And - and you’re right. Thor’s people have - probably the best idea about searching space, or the realms or whatever they call it. Thor - I can keep talking to him. Tell him what I know. Coordinate - coordinate from here. Until there’s a better lead.”

“Until there’s a better lead,” she repeats. “Okay.” She squeezes his hand.

“That name -” he adds, “Danvers - that rang a bell. I think I can find something out about her that Fury’s not telling us.”

“If I may interrupt,” Jarvis begins.

“Yeah, of course, sorry Jarvis -” Rhodey starts - as much as a digital mind that Tony had made could be worried about him, he knows Jarvis is.

“I believe I have some information on an Air Force Captain Carol Danvers you may find valuable…”

---

Tony has a cold pack over his still-bruised eye when the ship’s proximity alert goes off. 

Gamora looks at him “Something small - incoming fast - how quick can you get the suit -”

“It’s on top of us -” Nebula says, and then - 

They all look up at a light outside the spaceship window.

There’s a woman outside, waving. And glowing.

Tony looks at Gamora and Nebula. “So, do we … let her in, or?”

“That's the Annihilator,” Nebula says, somehow managing to pronounce the capital A.

Tony looks at the woman waving outside the window, then back at Nebula and Gamora. Gamora nods. 

“So...we don't let her in.” 

Gamora stares out the window. “I don't think we have a choice.”