Chapter Text
This was… a new one.
Usually when people came to Vormir, they knew what they wanted, but not always what they had to do. Most came willingly. Most left disappointed. Some left murderers, usually shoulder to shoulder with their betrayal… there had been arguments, of course. But never quite like this.
These two argue not for their lives, but for their deaths. Neither of them wants to save a world without the other in it. A third figure, as yet unnoticed but with a significant role in the events of the past and the events of yet to come, is on the precipice of realisation.
“Oh my god, Tony!”
The voice broke free of the crowd, shield abandoned, as their ship finally fractured under the strain. Tony staggered out – Nebula was carrying Peter for him, now when Tony could barely stand – and collided with a warm, solid chest.
“Tony, Tony oh my god you’re alive-” Oh, Tony realised, it’s Steve.
“Steve…” Tony whispered, desperately trying to extract himself from the embrace so he could see his husband’s face. “Steve.” Steve pulled him back a little, pressing a tender kiss to his forehead. The moment seemed to linger and settle – more people were coming forward, but Tony couldn’t care.
“I’ve never been so happy to see anybody in my life.” Steve told him, and then Tony felt him stiffen. “Tony, where’s Peter?” Tony tried to turn – Nebula should’ve followed him straight out? “Tony, where’s our son?” Steve’s voice was quiet, cold, not in anger but in fear that Tony might be about to tell him the unthinkable-
“Here!” Nebula’s voice called out. “I have him, he’s okay.” Steve sagged against Tony, gently shifting to support him, while still reaching out for their son. It was going to be okay.
They had trekked up the mountainside in silence, hand-in-hand. The solidarity between them, the tension and the peace, had been unusual though not entirely unique. Usually pairs who came here were energetic, fraught with nerves, or angry at the universe. Sometimes one is unconscious, and the journey is slow, but that is rare – though not as rare as this.
Maybe only one had known, but the other had suspected. He’d been gearing for a fight but was still holding off onto the last moment. Maybe it was hope, or it could have been denial.
Nebula sits away from the table around which those left have gathered. She wonders why Stark allows them to argue still – he knows what has to happen now, to retrieve the missing stone once more. She’d told him, and he hadn’t been surprised. All he had said that it was a terrible fate for Gamora.
And then he’d promised to change it.
Nebula knows a dysfunctional family when she sees one now. She thinks. They’re not like the Guardians – maybe this level of argument is a recent thing, or they’re more estranged than Stark had led her to believe, she doesn’t care. She mostly cares that it’s taking too long. She cares that Gamora died because she couldn’t handle being hurt – hurt that Stark already took his tools to and eased, just a little. She will miss him when he goes to Vormir.
“If anyone can handle the gauntlet…” she speaks and is surprised when the table quiets to listen to her, “it is the man Thanos marked as an equal.”
Stark grimaces but doesn’t not contradict her. The table slowly turns to look at him. Nebula watches not the man Stark had called husband, but the dark-skinned man, with braces made of tech. It must be Stark’s Rhodey – she knows him by no other name. “Tones?” he asks, voice soft, and Stark looks up at him. It is the only gaze he meets.
“He said that I was like him,” Stark swallows. “Burdened by knowledge. He knew my name.”
They had reached the pass where the figure had risen up in front of them – recognition had burst into hatred, one of the bright souls flickering madly – but then they knew, whether they had known before or not. That they would not leave to find another way speaks to the broken illusions of each man. Or maybe, simply, that they are tired.
“Will I be enough?”
Anthony Stark-Rogers flinches at question Steven Rogers-Stark poses to him and wishes there was a way to avoid it.
“No, Rogers.” Anthony snaps, and Thor watches as Steven winces. Having been updated by Bruce, who seems to have collated the full picture, Thor doesn’t know if he agrees with Anthony’s anger or not. He thinks there’s a piece of the story missing – a disagreement over legislation seems like too little. “Steve. I need you here, for Peter.”
“I would take care of the young Stark.” Thor points out, “you need not worry for him.” Anthony sighs.
“If you don’t want me there-,” Steven begins, but Anthony waves him off. The room is tense – Rhodes and Natasha seem to feel it the most. The rest are merely confused. “I don’t- I can’t let you just go off again, Tony, whether- whether I lost that right or not.”
Anthony looks up at Steven then, and something is soft in his gaze. Thor thinks his mother had looked at his father like that, even when he was breaking her heart. “You haven’t lost it.” Anthony tells him. He sighs deeply and glances at the lady of purple and blue. Rabbit- Rocket- had called her Nebula. “Alright. So, Steve comes with me to Vormir.”
Tony will not let Steve give his life for the universe, not now, not ever again. Tony had known since Nebula had explained to him what always awaits on Vormir, the crime to be committed, the sacrifice to be made… he’d known that he would never wield the gauntlet. He thinks Nebula knows that too. “Of course.” Tony says, and he can’t look at Steve’s face. He’d known who would have to come with him too, as much as he’d tried to avoid it – but who else could he ask this of? “Of course, you would be.”
“Would be-,” Steve starts, and Tony can feel the moment Steve realises. “No, Tony no.”
“It’s the best way.” Tony’s got no fight in him. He hasn’t in a long time. “Earth needs you more than it needs me.”
“You are literally the futurist, Tony, what- Tony, I’m not going to- to- no. No. I can’t, Tony, no matter what you think of me now.”
“Why would you argue with me on this Steve? You can bring back Barnes, and Sam, give our son back his best friends, Thor his brother back, his people, Strange can be returned to the Sanctum-,” Steve cuts him off.
“Because I want you, Tony!” He yells it, and immediately feels the shame burn on his face, but he won’t take it back. “I- It doesn’t mean enough to me, Tony, not at the cost of… No.”
“I think there was always meant to be more time,” Tony tells him, using the hand Steve’s still holding to tug him closer – and Steve goes, Steve will always go now. Tony draws him in, draws him down, and Steve buries his face in Tony’s neck. “You’d think we’re owed it.” Tony jokes, chokes on it a little, and Steve wraps his arms around Tony’s waist, hugs him tight as Tony wraps his arms around his neck.
“I can’t do it, Tony, I can’t.” Steve tells him in nothing more than a whisper, “I have to fix this, and I can’t do that, not without you.”
“Can you ask me to?” Tony asks him, pulling back. It’s honest curiosity, there will be no repercussions of Steve’s answer, it’s not even a trap; but it sets these events in motion. It means everything. What are you willing to do for each other, the universe is asking. There is always more to give. “Could you ask me to push you over the edge?”
“Tony…” Steve is pleading, and Tony pulls him down to kiss him – a first and a last all at once. Tony kisses him as he always did, like he’s got all the time in the universe to savour this moment, and Steve tries, but he knows the end is coming, know it acutely in a way he never has before. The train, the plane, Washington, Sokovia, Siberia… none of it had the finality of this soft goodbye kiss.
“Do you honestly think,” Tony begins softly, gently resting a hand on Steve’s face that Steve can’t help but lean into, “that if I had ever intended that we wouldn’t work it out, that I wouldn’t have filed for divorce?” Tony’s smiling, and Steve’s face falls open in shock. “I meant every word of my vows.”
“I meant mine too,” Steve promises him, even as Tony’s pulling back. “I’m not ready t-to part.” Steve’s voice cracks, he’s crying in earnest and Tony is desperately trying not to, because they would be okay.
The third figure makes it up the rock face then, unnoticed, and sees them pulling back, sees his fathers crying for eachother – and slips from the precipice of realisation straight into horror.
Tony lets go of Steve’s hand, at the edge, just as Peter vaults the rocks.
“Dad, no!” he yells, stumbling forward – his fathers both whip around to stare at him.
“Peter, what the hell-?” Steve sounds faint because no, no he can’t do this now, not if Peter has to live through it too. Tony just looks impossibly sad.
“Well, that settles it. My boys. My best boys. God,” Tony smiles, glancing between them. “I’m going to miss you.
“Dad, you can’t-” Peter tries to insist, but it’s not enough.
Tony steps back.