Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Great, just great.” Clint huffed as he looked around the dark tunnel they magically found themselves in. “We’ve been kicked out of our own planet by evil versions of us.” 

“...That somehow has the powers of the Infinity Stones.” Natasha adds in.

“Exactly.” 

Scott, being small, sat on Tony’s shoulder, looking over to the others. “Well, look on the bright side, even with the Infinity Stones, they decidedly didn’t violently choke us to death – y’know, like Darth Vader, but worse.”

“I understood that reference.” Steve couldn’t help but utter, even though he knew that this definitely wasn’t the time for that at all.

“What do they want from us?” Hulk frowned as he just wanted to desperately pummel that other him.  

“Considering that New York specifically is floating somewhere in outer space now, dominance , I would presume.” Thor answered. 

“Still doesn’t make sense why they would do all this,” Sam countered, “And why just New York. They’ve got the power of the Infinity Stones!”

“Either they’re dumber or they’ve got something planned,” Tony finally speaks up as he continues beep–booping on holograms that appeared from the palms of his gauntlets. “...Or they’re really picky about their choice of hostage, and their whole plan was to remove us completely from the equation. Either way, we need to find a way home.” 

New York was on the line, and they were against… Themselves – glowing like colours of the rainbow,  and empowered by the essences of the Infinity Stones. Everything is a mess, but all they know is that they had their asses served on a silver platter and they’ve been thrown into some alternate dimension to be discarded and hopefully left to rot, but the Avengers wouldn’t be who they are if they were just to accept the dystopian mess they found themselves in. 

No, they’re going to find their way home, even if it took them hell and high water to get there. 

“That way.” Tony pointed to some dark passageway within the already eerie tunnel, as he made his suit glow brighter to illuminate their way there. “I’m picking up some weak life signs of… Something.”

“You sure it’s not freaky lovecraftian monsters the Infinity Avengers sent to eat us?” Clint inquired, suspiciously, as they all began walking with Tony leading the way. 

“If you want to be left behind and find some other way out, we’d be happy to say our goodbyes to you right here, right now, Hawkeye.” Tony turned back at the archer, and with the glow of his faceplate’s eyes becoming faint, it gave the illusion that he was glaring at him, as he was already absolutely infuriated with the current situation and having evil him clearly being the better twin , which Clint was sure that it was definitely an intentional choice, and of which certainly made Clint shut up, looking rather abashed. 

“Oooh…” Scott whispered teasingly as he was still having the time of his life being small and lounging on the armoured Avenger’s shoulder, not having to walk at all. Clint darted a glare at Scott as he grumbled, earning him a pat on the shoulder from Sam who tried to immediately de-escalate the situation. 

Meanwhile, there was Natasha and Steve who unironically both sighed in unison, as they both were just so done with their team. A couple of minutes later, they arrived at what seemed to be the end of the seemingly endless tunnel, being met with bright light and funky colours in what seemed like an endless void with an endless amount of doors, spanning from the top to the bottom, to the left, and to the right – looking as if they were all having the same drug–crazed fever dream. The world was dead silent and there was nothing but just them and the doors. 

“Weird…” Tony commented, “Could’ve sworn that I saw– AAAAAAAA –” He screamed as he was suddenly pulled away by what looked to be giant fuzzy spiders all in different colours of the rainbows as well.  Scott was thrown off Tony’s shoulder after the latter was yoinked by one of the monstrously adorable arachnids, though thankfully, he managed to transform back into a normal–sized human before he went splat on the floor. After he did so, he backed away just like the rest of the Avengers did as they all stared in horror and confusion at the cuddly monsters before them.  Some of the spiders continued pulling Tony away, preparing to feast on their newfound prey, while others inched closer to the Avengers, hissing with deadly and hungry gazes.

“So, who’s side of the family is this?” Clint glanced at Natasha as he pulled out his bow and an arrow, “Yours or Spider–Man’s?”

“Oh, screw you!” Natasha grumbled, preparing her stingers. Steve pulled out his shield. “They’re about to have Tony for dinner. We need to save him. Avengers, assemble!” 

And cue your butt–kicking action of a bunch of super–powered individuals abusing furry spiders the size of five bakeries with skittle–coloured skins. 

Meanwhile, there was Tony in the background, being wrapped up in a thick blanket of webbing by about three spiders who seem a little too infatuated with him. The webbing was strong and as he was being cocooned, he could feel his limbs less and less. He can barely move his lower body with only anything above his shoulders poking out. If he wasn’t in his Iron Man suit, he would be extremely disgusted right about now. “Usually, they say I’m the toxic one in a relationship, but ladies, please, would it kill you all to give me a little space to breath ?” 

The spiders squeaked in definitely not listening to him. Thankfully, Clint shot a couple of hi–tech arrows that caused the spiders to be dazed and distracted them quite a bit, giving Sam the time to swoop in and slice through the webbing with his flechettes. “Wow, this really is some hard stuff.” He lamented as it took him a couple of minutes to actually get Tony out of there, much more to what he was expecting. “Right?” Tony responded as he just stood there, watching the battle rage on with Hulk ripping apart spiders, Thor barbequing them, Natasha stinging their eyes and roping their legs like a wild cowgirl, Steve ping–ponging his shield back and forth at a bunch of spiders’ poor and abused faces, Clint blowing up another group of spiders, and Scott growing bigger and literally just squishing them like bugs. 

It was actually kind of mildly amusing to Tony. If only he had some popcorn…. He should really think about implementing that somehow, but that’s a thought for another day.

After discarding the piles of corpses of the now dubbed skittle spiders , and helping Tony be set free from being their supposed beloved dinner, they went back to focusing on figuring out the rest of their surroundings again. 

“I look like a crusty Halloween yard decor left out for too long…” Tony grumbled, lamenting to no one in particular, as he attempted to dust off bits of webbing stuck on him, some even seeping into the crevices of his suit, which disgusted and annoyed him even more. Albeit it seems that everyone’s attention was focused on the mass of doors surrounding them from all sides. 

“What now?” Hulk asks. Good question.  Steve turns to his beloved can of sardines, prompting him to answer that. “Iron Man?”  

“We, uh, open doors.” The latter answers, earning confused and annoyed gasps from the rest of the team. So, Tony continued to explain his weird decision, “My sensors are bugged out and being harassed by large spiders didn’t help. Besides, there’s nothing else we could do ‘cause we’ll be eternally stuck here. All we can do is see what’s behind these doors and keep trying, or else we’ll be stuck here forever, and…”

“...New York, and perhaps the rest of the world, would be doomed and under the control of the Infinity Avengers.” Steve continued.

“Exactly.” Tony nodded towards him, looking back to the rest of the group, “Ground people take the bottom rows, and us who can fly will see what’s up top.” 

They all nodded and scurried off to their separate ways to start checking out what’s behind all the weird doors they come across. Some have different colours, and even weird colourful auras fuming through. It’s like they’re playing a dystopian game show – every door is something either weird, whacky, creepy, will kill you or a 4–in–1 mix of all of those categories. That was until Scott decided to check out some other doors that the others have seemingly skimmed over. Upon further inspection, he noticed something odd – some doors had labels, others had not; some even had their labels erased and almost impossible to read, only being able to make out a couple of numbers or letters. One that caught his eye specifically was a door with the label ‘ 199999 ’. For starters… That’s a lot of nines.  

Curiously, he gingerly twisted the golden doorknob and cautiously took a peek. Inside, he saw what looked to be an airport of sorts, and… Him! But… Edgier. Darker shades of clothing. Not only that, but the Avengers were there too, with a couple of others he can’t really distinguish, except for Hulk and Thor. They weren’t there for some reason.  Well, this was big stuff, that’s for sure. Scott slightly closed the door, leaving it ajar, as he stepped back and called out to the others. “Hey guys, I found something!” and thus, everyone scrambled to his location, and took a peek. 

“Woah,” Sam gasped, “Is that…”

“Us. Again .” Clint finished for him, earning a frustrated sigh from Natasha. Albeit it seems that Hulk and Thor have their priorities straight. “Where Hulk?” The Big Green inquired as he felt upset that for whatever reason, he wasn't there. “I too wonder what happened to me.” Thor adds in, woefully.

“Most importantly, why are they all fighting? What’s going on?” Scott comments as well. Tony, on the other hand, looks to Steve. The star–spangled captain then speaks up, “Well, whatever is happening, I know for sure that Avengers shouldn’t be against each other and striking one another.” 

Clint then glanced at him, “What? We’re just gonna waltz in there and tell the kids to stop playing rough in the sandbox?” Little did he know, that’s exactly what Cap was planning. The latter pulled out his shield, pushing the door wide open and rushing into the airport. Tony boosted his thrusters and swiftly followed after him, causing all the others to follow their leaders as well like little ducklings following their parents. Clint was left in the dust. “I was joking!” He yelled out, although no one was really listening to him anymore. He grumbled loudly and dramatically as he readied his arrows and rushed in after the rest of the team. 

As the other, darker and grittier Avengers, were all beating the living hell out of each other, the incoming Avengers came and deflected some devastating attacks that the others were about to inflict onto each other.  The alternate Spider–Man swung by, noticing the supposed doppelgangers that just had appeared. “Uh… Mr. Stark,” The younger Spider–Man alerted through their comms. “There’s another you flying around.”

“That’s cute, kid.” The other Stark comments haphazardly as he’s about to blow missiles at his Cap. “Probably one of Wanda’s illusions. Don’t mind it.”, whereas at the same time, his Cap threw his shield at him. Both of which were both deflected mysteriously; the missiles were blown up by other homing missiles, and the shield was thrown off–course by another shield that just came seemingly out of nowhere.  The two were put to a halt as they were both left in a state of confusion. That was when a cleaner (minus the spider webs) and brighter Iron Man descended from seemingly out of nowhere, with another Captain America in his grasp. 

“What. The. F–” The other Stark uttered in complete stupefaction.

“–Told you.” Spider–Man commented through the comms as he was about to attack their Hawkeye with a barrage of webbings, who was going to shoot an arrow at him, but the both of them were stopped by another Hawkeye.  Sam, the young little precious one, was carrying Natasha through the skies as he then spotted an older–looking him. “HOLY– WHAT–” He gasps, absolutely flabbergasted. Natasha, on the other hand, was very surprised, but was much more focused on the stinging in her ears after the teenager literally started screaming. “...Can you freak out a little quieter??” She groaned, earning herself a coy apology from the little bird.

But it seems that the older him was equally flabbergasted. “WHAT THE HELL– IS THAT ME??” 

Needless to say, the entirety of Civil War was put to a halt because of a bunch of intruding, er, copycats. 

Suddenly, all the other edgier Avengers paused, absolutely baffled by what the hell is going on. And then they realized the resident reality–bender on Team Cap. Everyone snaps their gazes over to her, and then she looks back at them, equally confused as hell. “It’s not me!” Wanda says, earnestly. 

“Yeah, it’s not her.” The other, brighter, Iron Man says as he descends down to level with everyone else. 

“We’re real.” His Cap continues.

“Yep, hi.” 

To add onto the confusion, these two are seemingly in–sync with each other, so much so that  they can finish each other’s sentences and everything. A certain other Stark may or may not be salty. He blinks as his already–stressed out mind is thrown into a frenzy. “Can anybody tell me who the hell invited stunt doubles?” 

“We’re not stunt doubles,” Blonde Clint says as he adjusts his eggplant–shaded sunglasses and stares oddly at brunette him, squinting. “We’re…” Well, he’d say we’re the Avengers, but now it doesn’t seem to be that way, seeing as they’re currently talking to, uh, them.  

“We’re the Avengers.” Cap says anyway. 

“But we’re…” The other him tried to counter before cutting himself off because he isn’t exactly sure what to say either as he is left speechless, staring at his other self. 

“...Something is clearly wrong.” T’Challa commented. 

“ You don’t say. ” The more dead–inside alternate Stark replied sarcastically with a roll of his eyes. Tony – our Tony – pulls up his faceplate and takes a moment to ponder about the situation. His young and rejuvenated face adds more to a certain someone’s jealousy. There’s something about these ‘intruders’ that look so sweet and wonderful, as if they’ve all made some deals with the Shadow Court– Oh wait, that’s the wrong fandom.  

While he’s doing that, and everyone is staring at everyone, Scott retracted his helmet too, adding in, “199999. That’s what was labeled on the door. I guess this is what this place is?”

Other Scott, who was a brunette, was more shocked that this mirrored version of him was a ginger and definitely had wildly different hairstyles. Not to mention how young he looks too, just like all the other intruding alternate Avengers. 

“Ahhh…” Tony goes, “This must be one of those other universe things, right? The multiverse?” 

“The multi–what now?” His other self echoes. Younger Peter perks up, “Ooh, ooh, it’s like that thing from that one movie where–” And there, he was promptly shushed by his Stark, to which Peter apologized for. 

“I’ve been doing some research about it ‘till lots of bad stuff happened and I had to put it aside,” Tony explains, “But the gist of it is that there’s always various variants of the same entity in several, heck, maybe even hundreds or thousands of other universes. I’m guessing we stumbled into one…”

“And what’s your business being here?” Alternate Vision just so happened to speak up. Natasha strolls up to them as Sam gently drops her nearby, answering, “We got banished by a bunch of evil versions of us and we’re trying to find a way home.” 

“I guess that kind of explains the… Door… in the middle of the air? ” Bucky murmured, glancing over to the jarringly intriguing phenomenon that is a door–shaped hole in the middle of empty space with the abyss of doors on the other side. 

“Most importantly, why are you all fighting each other? What is going on in this strange alternate universe? And where is Hulk and I?” Thor perks up, earning a nod from Hulk. And thus, things get heated as the edgier variants try to explain the situation which leads to passive–aggressively berating each other and then lots of overwhelmingly thick tension. They were about to start going at it again before the more family–friendly Avengers happened to stop their alternative selves. 

“Woah, woah, wait. You support the government??” Tony bursts out, darting a glare at, uh, himself . 

“Well, not particularly, but–” The other Stark scoffed, “Did you ever think about the repercuss–”

“Don’t talk to me about repercussions,” The younger Tony cuts him off, looking rather offended as he inched closer to the alternate him. “We were treated like pawns; Hulk was collared, Cap almost died , and I had to rot in a pocket dimension with a psychotic nanovirus stuck inside of me, and – ” 

Steve pulled his Tony away, rubbing his tensed shoulders; calming him down. “What he means to say is… We haven’t had the best relationship with the government in the past year or so from where we came from… Anyway, we’ve been having a long day, everybody’s just really tired, we’re very sorry.” 

Eventually, they all ended up clearing things up. The whole momentum of taking each other down was put to a halt, and it turned into one massive therapy session. It felt like the 199999 Avengers were being talked down by their preschool teachers, and they hated the feeling, but these happy–go–lucky copycats had a lot of insight and wise things to tell… After…. Arguing a lot themselves throughout the whole ‘therapy session’.  

Everything went rather swell in the end, both Natashas being snarky and badass, Younger Sam freaking out because of older him, and older him freaking out about younger him, both Scotts and Clints mostly being weirded out about the different hair colours and styles, but most importantly, their backstories of how they became who they were, and… Let’s just say our Clint is never going to be the same after hearing that 199999 him has a wife, three kids, and a farm. He sounded a lot wiser too, which one would have assumed came with the whole responsibilities of juggling being the breadwinner of the family and a full–fledged superhero thing. Thor and Hulk are still upset that they’re not there, and were concerned to know that the two. In this universe, simply just went on their separate ways one day, but talking to the alternate versions of some of their other friends were cool too. They’re certainly excited to tell everybody all about it back home. Spider–Man doesn’t really know what to do, since he’s new to this whole teaming up with bigger heroes thing, and then suddenly, there’s this problem of sweeter and more wholesome versions of the people he looks up to just casually dropping in, and something something about this multiverse thing. Wow, superheroing is tough stuff.

And then there were the two leaders; 199999 Stark seems a bit jealous that this other Tony’s all tall, sweet, and like he’s actually had a good 8 hours of sleep. I mean, look at that guy's smile, he’s a ball of sunshine encased in a sardine can; all that’s missing are those anime sparkles hovering around him. And the way he talks so lovingly about his Steve and the rest of his team. Well, aside from the bout of anger issues and the ranting about getting kicked out of their own universe that’s got him all worked up, he sounds like a fun guy to be around with. Meanwhile, the Steves seemed to be a lot more chill about things; 199999 Rogers sounded so utterly tired of everybody’s crap, meanwhile the other Steve looks like a disaster waiting to happen masked with sunshines and rainbows. Their conversation ended up relegating to stuff about Bucky, and our Steve was happy to see him again… Sort of. Well, it’s not his, but it’s still Bucky, and he misses his a lot. He hasn’t seen nor heard from him ever since he jumped off the plane that would’ve killed them both and Red Skull a couple of years back, so at least one other Rogers got his Bucky back. Although not everybody was lucky to get their best friends back, even the smiley Tony looked uncomfortable and particularly upset seeing 199999 Rhodey. This universe’s Stark and Rhodes wondered why, and Tony shrugged it off with simply saying that he hasn’t seen him in a long while, although the utter pain in his eyes helped seal the deal that his excuse was actually just an euphemism for something more grim. 

It seems that talking to their alternative selves helped clear some things for both Avengers teams, and eventually, the traveling ones had to go on their way, and, unfortunately, back to the abyss of doors to find another way out. 

Steve pats 1999999 Rogers’ shoulder as they walked to the door left open. “Remember what we talked about,” He reminded him.

“No lies, I know,” He nodded earnestly with a small smile. “Thank you.” 

Steve smiled back at him and gave him a small salute, and his alternate self saluted back.

Surprisingly, universe–hopping seemed a lot more enjoyable, opposite to what they initially thought. After 199999, they explored a lot more. They’ve lost track at this point with how many universes they’ve been through at this point. After 199999, they’ve traveled to at least 10 or more, and after that, they could’ve sworn it’s been about 20 something. They’re not sure anymore; their sanity has been draining with every turn of a knob and every time they have to make a mad sprint out of the screaming hells they’ve walked into; they’ve walked into one universe where Steve is the president of the US, one where Tony had somehow caused a zombie–like apocalypse and a social hierarchy that rode on high beauty standards, one where all the Avengers were dead and their supposed descendants were the only ones left up against Ultron who successfully caused humanity’s extinction, one where they were killers and actual pawns of the government, hell, they even ended up falling into a historical one where Tony was the king and the rest of the Avengers were his knights and high–ranking generals of the royal military, except that most of them had decidedly revolted against him due to immoral decisions where his highness believed he was doing it for the greater good of the people, while knight Steve wholeheartedly believed that forced labour and sacrificing lives wasn’t what they both dreamt of, not to mention that in that universe, there was also some ancient evil that had constantly terrorized Wakanda in the past, now coming for the Avegers’ kingdom for revenge, and because… Something something about reaping Tony’s soul and punishing Steve for his crimes? It was a massive mess. 

It didn’t help that no matter how much they tried to help, it was like the universe itself didn’t want anybody to survive. The universe was on its way to killing itself, and even if the historical Avengers were willing to change and make amends, it was too late for them and their universe because the full–scale attack of the aforementioned ancient evil was inevitable. Our Avengers managed to escape through another open door back to the abyss that had popped up somewhere else within the castle grounds, but left behind them were dark fogs, maniacal laughter of victory, and the helpless screams of the damned, with weapons clinking and thudding as their users were mercilessly consumed. King Tony told the tale about how painful it was being blinded by said monstrous evil during his and his Steve’s first encounter with it – which lead to it coming back for revenge – and how it tried to take his soul, and how it would’ve fortunately succeeded if Steve didn’t get in the way, but even so, the scars it left on him tore him apart inside and out. If the horrors of what his highness turned into was just a part of what the villain could do, what more would’ve been it consuming two entire kingdoms who’re once rich in beautiful nature and human life. 

“Don’t look back,” Clint whispered to Sam who instinctively tried taking a peek of the chaos going on behind them, despite looking utterly traumatized witnessing actual hell. Honestly, all of them were. They’ve been through a lot that’s for sure, but hearing and watching the entire extinction of a race unfold right before them, especially without being able to do anything about it, was enough for even all of their hearts to skip a beat in all the worst ways possible. Back in the safety of the abyss, Thor tried to stomach the pain and close the door, but the door itself shut on its own rather aggressively, closing off every ounce of echoing screams as puddles of blood spurted out in the last minute and spreaded across the ‘floor’ of the abyss before the door fully closed on its own. A few seconds after it did, it sounded like something exploded from inside as small puffs of smoke and dark fog emerged from the crevices of the closed door and poofed away into the air of the abyss. The bronze label ‘1760’ fell from its hook that was nailed into the door as it fell and cracked, breaking into tiny pieces onto the floor. 

Out of curiosity and intrigue, Scott couldn’t help himself and tried to gingerly twist the doorknob again. He couldn’t . The door was shut and could never be opened again.  

There was a brief moment of silence as the Avengers mourned the loss of their counterparts. They’ve met too many to count, but every single one was special in their own little ways, and all those that were lost to some sort of prophetic purge would be dearly missed, even though nobody else in the rest of the multiverse remembered them, nor even knew of their existence. Sure they’ve been to some post–apocalyptic universes before, but those had hope, they had people that could live, reproduce, avenge the fallen, continue and rebuild society. This universe, however, had no chance of any sort of survival whatsoever. It was painful, cruel, and inhumane; enough to bring a tear to one’s eye. 

“... An entire universe, ” Steve couldn’t help but mutter under his breath with the horrifying events they had just witnessed playing in his mind; it was traumatic – to hear cannons firing, gunshots, screaming, crying; it brought up a lot of horrible memories back in the war, “Just like that… ” That was then when he remembered something he had – a little rose. During their stay in that Victorian–esque universe, Knight Steve brought him to the castle’s garden where he and the king would spend most of their days when not on duty. The garden was beautiful, and the knight variant would tell stories about how, though his Tony is blind, he helps him navigate his way around places and appreciate the beauty of their kingdom; the awe–inspiring garden being one of those beauties – now not anymore. The knight gave Steve the flower as a souvenir for their travels, hoping he would bring it home to share its beauty with the people in their home universe, but even the flower didn’t look it was going to last long; maybe due to the fact that the universe it came from had collapsed in on itself and already perished. 

As a mournful tribute, Steve stepped forward and gingerly placed the flower by the door, giving a small salute to the fallen, promising to himself that, even without materialistic gifts, he’ll tell everyone at home about their adventures, and that somewhere out there in the vast multiverse of infinite possibilities, there was a beautiful kingdom, filled with beautiful people, with their own beautiful problems. 

However, there was no time to cry over what was lost for their own home universe was still at stake. The people of New York – their people – were counting on them to be saved, and they were sure as hell would not be letting them down. Fortunately, a lot of other universes they’ve been to weren’t as morbid as the historical one; there was an universe where all of them were animals, another where they were bean–sized squishable alien… Things, another universe where their aliases as superheroes were happened to be taken a little too literate – example being that the Black Widow in that universe was a literal spider, and their Iron Man was a literal humanoid whose skin was pure metal, another one where they were partnered with kids who summoned them like Pokemon (Apparently, it was that universe’s Tony’s fault for trapping them in Pokeballs… Er, uh, disks as he calls it). None of them were able to really help , but they provided hospice and insight on how to navigate better, even if most of them haven’t really heard of the multiverse, and the Avengers’ arrivals were the first experience they had of this whole convoluted concept. 

That was then they walked into another universe, er, well, fell in , rather. They walked through the door, but on the other side, the door’s location was in the sky and they all almost went splat, but falling in style wasn’t anything new to them even in their home universe, so they were able to easily save themselves. They looked around their surroundings and everything looked… Oddly peaceful. And by oddly peaceful, too peaceful. Not to mention how nice the people were! They were cleaning up after their dogs’ poops, throwing their trash in the proper recycling bins, driving on the correct side of the roads… “What the hell is wrong with this place?” Clint couldn’t help but muse out loud. 

“Right?!” Scott remarks as they all look around at the seemingly perfect utopia of a city, even Steve’s uncomfortable. 

“Just you all wait, something’s going to explode and we’ll all freak out in 3… 2…” And before Tony could count down to one, something nearby falls out of the sky too, crashes horribly, and then rolls across the road with bits of metal detaching and eventually landing horribly by the Avengers’ feet. Judging from the armour they bore, it was another Iron Man; a… Rather clumsy one at that? His suit was black and gold with bright purple accents; broken up, bits and pieces scattered across the street, and it was literally smoking. He was rather pitiful, that’s for sure; the black sheep in this perfect utopia. 

All of the Avengers were understandably intrigued and very well concerned. Tony, being the closest, gingerly made his way over to him. “Hey, are you alright?” He asks softly, reaching a hand out to him to help him get up. The Stark variant slowly tries to get a grip on himself. He groaned as he flipped his faceplate up, fluttering his bloodshot amber eyes open. He yelped upon seeing the other Tony, instinctively shooting a repulsor to his face. “Get away from me!” He shouted, miserably, with a distinct and heavy Irish accent. Well, he’s trying to sound American, but his accent is pretty thick. You’d think they’re in Ireland if it weren’t for the several Greenfield posters around. 

Tony groaned as he stumbled back. The rest of the Avengers were ready to apprehend the variant, but Hulk bellowed and charged first. The variant swiftly picks himself up, and though stumbling, he put up a good fight, despite his obviously less–than–stellar state. “Stupid clones! You can’t stop me from getting back at evil Kelly for him!” He growled, sounding all the more distressed and delusional. That was then Thor apprehended him and slammed down Mjolnir to his chest, straight to his arc reactor; not enough to kill him of course, but just enough to subdue him and keep him powerless. 

The rabid Stark gasped for air as he stumbled back to the ground with the magical hammer pinning him down.

“Calm down, Stark, we are not your enemies. We come in peace,” Thor said sternly though keeping a calm tone. The other Stark squinted and finally got a good look at Thor, as he wasn’t able to do so, considering how fast the whole attack earlier happened. Upon doing so, he gasped, “...Thor, you’re back! You came back… F–For me. I’ve missed you so mu–” He then squinted his eyes again and noticed the differences. “Wait… You’re not my Thor….” 

“...I’m afraid not.”

And just like that, the slightest bit of happiness that the Irish Stark had had been drained out of his already pale body as he groaned in misery of having false hope… And also because Mjolnir is heavy as hell. Even Thor felt bad to tell him the truth. Whoever the Thor was in this universe, he seemed to have certainly meant a lot to this sad Irish man. 

“Look, can you just…” Irish Stark motioned to Mjolnir on his chest.

“Will you attack us?” Thor raises an eyebrow as he just had to make sure.

“N-No…. I– Look, who the hell are you guys anyway?!” 

Thor takes that this other Stark had already tired himself out and was thus no longer a threat, while Tony explained their shtick for the… 100th time it feels like, he sighed, “We’re the Avengers from another universe. Stuff happened, we’re lost and we’re trying to find a way back home, aaaand… We so happened to stumble upon your universe.” 

“Ah… Those kinds of people again.” The Irish Stark scoffed as Thor helped him up to his feet, whereas it looked like he almost blushed at such a kind gesture. 

“Yeah, we just came from…” Tony was about to point to the sky, but the door–shaped hole was mysteriously gone. “...Oh.” And just like that, they all paled at the thought of being stuck in another universe. 

Irish Stark also looked up and noticed their horrified expressions. He, on the other hand, looked absolutely dead inside. “Happens,” He clarified with a sigh, “I don’t know which gateway you guys came from, but any interdimensional traveler always has problems like this when they come here to us. We haven’t figured out why it happens, but there is a solution to it.”

“So that means you’ll help us?” Steve queries, hopeful in his tone, as always. 

The Irishman looked rather hesitant for a moment, especially when Steve spoke, contrary to how much he immediately swooned over seeing Thor, it looked like he was about to have a whole mental breakdown by Steve’s very existence, but he had to remind himself it was not his Steve, and thus he stomached his inner angst and hesitantly nodded.”Yeah… That’s what heroes do.” He shrugged. Usually when you’d meet someone who says that, they’d say it with a big smile, with that sparkle in their eyes, and the spunk in their voice; Irish Stark, however, looked and acted like he was Iron Man because it wasn’t about wanting to do the right thing, it’s because he just so happened to be placed in this situation and he’s been chained to it ever since.  Maybe he enjoyed his career at some point; his city is safe and happy; everyone is doing their part to make a better world, and he’s still sadder than Squidward. It concerned the Avengers, but this guy was going to help them, so they decided to hold off on all of their suspicions and concerns… For now.  

They didn’t really have any proper mode of transport except for Falcon, Thor, Tony, and Hulk carrying everybody else considering they couldn’t fly and Irish Stark’s suit is one giant smoke machine. According to his directions, they were lead into a forest around the outskirts of the city, trudging deeper and deeper, they eventually ended up at a mansion estate situated by a cliff overlooking the sea that surrounded it. The mansion looked a lot like the one Tony had in Malibu, which is weird because they were in Mississippi… Maybe the same architectural tastes are just another constant for Starks across the multiverse. The mansion looked like it had certainly seen better days; not only because of it having to be constantly rebuilt, according to Irish Stark, but also because he kind of stopped caring about maintenance a few years ago.

He led them to the backyard where there was a small farm, a pig pen, and three dog pens. Two were unoccupied and collecting cobwebs, while in one of the smaller ones, a sad little pug was lying on his bed and moping. 

“Wow, this place looks like it’s been prepared for doomsday,” Clint commented as they all walked through the backyard, catching particular interest in the giant pig in the pen.

“Heh, yeah,” Irish Stark commented, noticing Clint eyeing the pigs. “Oh, they’re not for eating, they're pets, ‘specially the big one. He’s our favourite.” Our. As far as the other Avengers know, this Stark has been living alone. He ominously said that something happened to his Avengers and now he’s the only one left, but the way he phrased that our made them have hope that maybe not everything in this universe would be depressing. They’ve already witnessed too many alternate Avengers meeting their unfortunate demise. They’re so tired of all the hurt; they just want at least one place to be happy for once.  Even the dog isn’t happy though. 

“Is your dog… Alright?” Sam asks, seeing the pug whimpering as he buried his head in his soft pillow.

Irish Stark glanced over to his pet. “Stumpy? Yeah, he’s always like that. He used to play a lot with Dave and Snout,” He answered, motioning over to the two other empty dog houses. “But then Thor left for Asgard, took Dave, and Steve, he…” The mention of the name made him gag. “Anyway, here ‘round back, I know someone that can help us whip something up to hopefully get you guys home.” 

Steve is already concerned about what the hell alternative him did, but he didn’t think it was the proper time to ask. They continued following the Irishman, and ended up walking down some stairs down to a small seating area by the sea. Along with that, there was also a circular stone structure just floating in the sea with a control panel to the side. Irish Stark walks over to the control panel and does his thing… Pressing buttons, sliding levers, etc.

“He’ll be here soon.” Irish Stark says afterwards, standing idly by, looking out to the sea, causing everybody else to turn their attention to what he was looking at too. Bubbles appear and a cute brunette in a black and blue wetsuit emerges from the depths of the sea. “You better be happy I just finished my shift,” The enigmatic newcomer huffs, “What’s this whole emergency thing anyway?” And then his eyes become fixated on the Avengers, and he gasps, “Tony, it’s you! Well, there’s another you, a–and Thor is back! Cap too! They’re–”

“–Not the team,” Irish Stark cuts him off. “They’re from another universe.” 

“Oh…” The man who came from the sea – who, for some reason, sounds a lot like the Irish Tony too – frowned a little as he made his way to the surface. 

“Is it just me or is every other universe just really weird as hell?...” Scott whispers to the rest of the team. Natasha whispers back, “We just came from one where everybody was some furry rodent and you think some scuba diver magically coming out of the waters without actually being soaking wet is weird?”

“Fair point…” Scott replied. 

And then cue your mandatory introductions and explanation of what just happened. The Avengers were then introruced to this weird guy, that just emerged from the sea, who happened to also be named Steve, but he’s the only Steve Irish Stark seems to tolerate, but to reduce confusion, we’ll just call him Scuba. 

Scuba is apparently a genius too; well, not Tony Stark level, but he knows things.

“So… What we really need is some sort of device that’ll be able to scan for interdimensional frequencies…” Scuba utters, whereas Irish Stark continues, “We already have a gateway portal to your world under the sea, so…” then Tony adds in, “Can I take a look at what you guys got? If we could somehow study it…” Sam then continues for him too, “then we’ll be able to mimic its programming…” and lastly, there was Scott, “ergo, make a tracker to find where the next door popped up.” 

Everybody else watched as all five of the biggest brain cells here collectively came together and made some pretty interesting exchanges with each other. 

“Is this what it feels like to be in a room full of smart people?” Clint mused out loud.

“Clint, please, we literally live in the same house with Sam and Tony, plus Scott. There’s no normal breakfast without being forced guests to their spontaneous Ted Talks about quantum physics and whatever doodly whats–its.” Steve said. 

“Why are we all even surprised at hearing all this smartass junk?” Hulk interjects. 

“Exactly.” Thor adds in. 

“Shh,” Natasha cuts them all, “The geniuses are geniusing.” She says, still watching the five, actually being interested in all of them finishing each others sentences and nerding out productively. 

Eventually, after what felt like forever of back and forths, the five came to a conclusion and the others were glad to just be of whatever help they could be. The plan was to set up a satellite outside and create a new tracking algorithm. Some tests and experiments were needed to be done to make this right, considering this is the multiverse they’re talking about, and with how expansive it is, an abyss of doors that seemingly bugs out any sort of tech would be hard to find, but they’re going to try their best – whatever it takes.  Everything was going pretty well; there were some setbacks, but it wasn’t like their inventions exploded yet at least. Things were going steadily well. That was then Irish Stark seemed to have zoned out, again, actually. Irish Stark backs away from the computers, servers, and other components that they were all working on. He pressed on the earpiece of his suit, and the only thing anybody heard was “Yeah, I’ll be there in a second. Keep him stable, please.” The man stepped forward, “Hey, uh, you all just keep doing that, and I’ll just excuse myself for a moment. I… Need to go do something real quick.” He then activated his boot jets and began hovering in the air, before one of them poofed and shut off on him which almost made him lose his balance, but he managed to get himself back in the air again a–okay. 

The others are pretty worried though. He looks like the kind that could easily kill himself because life likes bullying him, and they still need him to finish this. 

“Whatever it is, I could come with and help,” Tony volunteered. 

“No!–” his Irish counterpart answers immediately and almost in a rather aggressively defensive tone. He, awkwardly, cleared his throat. “Sorry, but it’s a private thing. Thank you for offering anyway. I’ll be back as soon as possible…” And with that, he flew off, ominously. 

With him gone and Scuba here, it was asking questions.time. 

“Hey, not trying to be rude or anything, but your buddy’s kinda weird, no?” Clint brings up the topic first. 

“Yeah, I know,” Scuba sighed. 

“He looks awfully sickly and with a strong need for mental support,” Thor couldn’t help but comment. 

“I know…” Scuba answers again. 

“Would it be alright to share why?” Steve interjects. 

“I would, but I got nothing,” Scuba frowns. “He was a pretty cool guy, then his team just kinda vanished one day and he’s been pretty weird ever since. I asked him where the others were, but he said that it was classified, which is stupid because I’m practically a reserve member at this point, and I’ve been left in the dark… I mean,” He then shrugged, “I’ve been gone for a while, but that’s ‘cause I had important things to do on my own, but now I’m here, he won’t tell me anything. Bottomline is, though, he’s being awfully defensive and mysterious; it’s concerning.”

Weird… Mysterious… Defensive…. Keeping secrets…

The Avengers are all too familiar with all those traits. They all instinctively then turned to their Tony with frowns and raised eyebrows. Tony looks back at them, blinking in confusion, before then realizing what the hell they were all on about. He puts his hands up in defense, “Hey, that whole thing with me gatekeeping stuff about Ultron was, what, three… Five years ago now? I thought you were all over with being mad at me for lying…” Now that he said that out loud, all his guilt was slowly coming back to him again. 

“We are, but one cannot deny how much your counterpart is showing all of the same telltale signs,” says Thor. 

Scuba didn’t like how things were turning out and how tensions were thickening. He never liked confrontation,, and as much as he was as worried for his own Tony, he didn’t think pressing matters would really solve anything, especially with such a secretive guy as himself. Through the silence, Scuba pretended to kick something to cause some damage to the machine they were working on – minor, but enough to get the alternate Avengers distracted. “Oh… Whoops,” He chuckled awkwardly. “I’m really sorry, you guys, I know you all wanna go home and stuff, and…”

“It’s alright. We can fix it.” Sam replied, patting him on the shoulder with a smile.

Things get back on track, but only for a little while, because they run into another roadblock – they’ve got missing parts. Irish Stark flew home a couple minutes earlier, seemingly rattled and busy, but Scuba told Tony to go ask him where he keeps his other equipment. So, Tony indeed starts strolling around the mansion. It was both hard and easy to get around, considering the similarities it resembled to the one he had in California, but at the same time, there were a lot of things that he felt weren’t where they were supposed to be… Why is there a tree inside a

a hallway for example. Eventually, after a bit of walking, he heard Irish Stark’s voice coming from the med bay, so he hastily makes his way over there. An in–house doctor excuses himself and walks out, and Tony was left standing by the archway. Inside the med bay was a small child, laying on the bed  – bloodied, bruised, with several burn marks on his skin – with the man Tony was looking for, sitting beside him, with his helmet off and placed to the side; he looked like he was this close to breaking down, but it just wasn’t the time and place to do so..  It was a horrifying sight to see, and even if Tony knew nothing of the situation, it simply broke his heart. 

“Just hang in there, kid,” Irish Stark coos. “You’re gonna be okay, I promise…” 

“...A–Am I gonna die, Mr. Stark?” The little boy coughed out. Irish Stark’s face paled as he bit his lip and seemed to have debated what he was going to say. It was hard to stay hopeful when all the odds were stacked against the child’s small and frail body. He wasn’t going to survive, and the Irishman knew that. 

Irish Stark forced a small smile still, “Of course you will,” He faked a chuckle. “You’re my partner; toughest little guy I’ve ever met. I’m so proud of you…” He says, gingerly brushing strands of the boy’s dark brown hair out of his face;  his words making the little boy smile and giggle, despite the horrible state he was currently in. 

Tony didn’t want to bother the moment the two were having, but curse these plot–relevant creaky floorboards, revealing his position and alerting the latter that he was there.  Irish Stark immediately snaps his head towards the origin of the noise and notices that he was there. Tony tried taking a step back, hoping that the latter would go back to whatever he was doing. It’s fine; he can wait; his son is dying or something, that’s more important; just the thought of someone dying because an Avenger can’t do anything about it was already a terrifying thought on its own – much worse that it seems to be someone close to them. 

“Go to sleep, baby, I just have to go do something.” Irish Stark says to the child, giving him a small forehead kiss and making sure everything is in check before he leaves him alone. The kid was already out of it from the medicine anyway. Afterwards, he takes his helmet from the side, and he heads outside to meet up with Tony. “Things outside doing okay?” He asks. Tony was rather caught off–guard by how quick he seemed to just casually change the subject after looking like he was about to cry right there. To be fair, up close, he looks so tired – the kind of ‘I’m done with my life’ tired, but answering his question, “Uh, yeah, we just have a couple of components missing, and we were wondering if you had any spares?” 

“I might have what you’re looking for,” Irish Stark shrugged, beginning to walk past him and motioning for him to follow him down a set of stairs down to his garage/lab. 

Exactly like Malibu is all Tony could really think of right now. Irish Stark haphazardly throws his helmet down on his already messy work desk. The helmet was scratched up and had holes in it, so might as well break it even more is probably his philosophy. “There’s probably something in the boxes… I–I dunno, feel free to look around. You are technically me, after all.”

Tony just nods and starts scurrying around, trying not to trip over a wild toolbox here and there, pricking his iron boots with what seem to be broken shards from whiskey bottles. He pulls some boxes over to him and shuffles through its contents – nothing, so he moves to the next one, and the next, and then the next one… Until he ended up making his way to a corner where a lone tool cabinet was seated with its drawers already haphazardly opened. He found a couple, but it’s not enough. If he found some in the tool cabinet, then maybe his Irish counterpart keeps it around there, so he keeps looking at the compartments around that area, that was then he ended up finding a smashed photo frame. Curiously, he picked it up and flipped it over to look at the photograph; it seemed to be an old photo of the Avengers of this universe; everybody looked pretty happy and it was the complete opposite of what was going on right now in real life, especially comparing it to his Irish counterpart. Although it seems that all those smiling faces were scribbled over; Steve’s especially; so much so that there were scratches that indicated that the scribbling was so intense that it tore through the photograph. 

He knew it wasn’t really his place to know, but his curiosity got the best of him. But before he could even ask it himself, Irish Stark seemed to notice his interest in the photo. 

“Oh, you found it,” He commented. “I was going to throw it away, but I couldn’t find it, then shit went down, and then you guys came…” He trailed off awkwardly. 

“What happened to them?” Tony asked grimly, glancing up to his counterpart who faced back at him with a blank expression. 

“I don’t know,” He shrugged. “They all abandoned me.” 

That’s strangely a little more reassuring than to hear that they all miserably died. “...Abandoned?” Tony couldn’t help but echo. 

“Thor left a couple of years ago because he said he needed to deal with something with Asgard, never came back… And Steve, he…” Irish Stark groaned in frustration as his words were left vaguely in the air as he looked away and went back to swooping his hand around his messy workspace, looking for the tools and equipment which were the reason for why they came here in the first place. “Nevermind.” 

Tony frowned, walking over to him, pulling his attention back onto him. “No. What happened?”

“He left me. He left me for that Winter fucking Soldier,” He answered, the exasperation growing evident in his tone, “Stupid son of a bitch took my money and skedaddled. Left me behind with this stupid disaster excuse of a ‘ superhero team’ ...” He rolled his eyes as he scoffed at even mentioning his Avengers. Unlike how much he was trying to hold back earlier, it seems that the Irishman is just laying it out all on Tony; all his hatred, anger, frustration…

It’s like nobody ever asked how he was doing and Tony happened to be there at the right time to witness the bomb explode.

“And then the media starts getting on my ass. Oh, where’s Captain America? You two were the duo. We never saw you two separated from each other, even outside of duty… ” He continued to ramble, “ Why is the team failing? It’s like all of you are falling apart and becoming yesterday’s news…. Ugh, the nerve of people…” 

…They only asked more and more favours from him and expected excellence from none other than the Tony Stark. 

Tony has been trying to butt in this whole conversation, but he’s learned that it’s best to listen; it’s what this other him wanted; what he needed .  But eventually, he found a window of opportunity to talk, “Everybody? Everyone left?” 

“Why do you think the mansion is emptier than my will to live?” 

Well, that was suddenly a lot less reassuring. Irish Stark continued, “After Thor and Steve left, they said I was a loose cannon. They didn’t like how I led the team and we began arguing a lot more than we usually do… Then, one day, I…” He heaved a heavy sigh, “...I got so pissed off, I shouted at them. I told them, why the hell won’t you all just leave if you aren’t happy being here anymore? I don’t need any of you anyway… Well, you saw how greatly everything is going without them.” 

Tony has had his fair share of driving the team insane , and he thought that was already the worse it could get, then he gets a massive slap back to reality by none other but an alternative version of him. Nevertheless, it broke his heart just listening to his story, and that’s saying something because he’s seen the entirety of humanity be extinguished in an instant in another universe. He ambled over to his counterpart, and put a hand on his shoulder as a form of comfort. 

Irish Stark takes a glance at him, and Tony could swear that there were tears in his eyes; tears of a broken man who’s on the brink of leaving this world on his own accord. The Irishman made a couple of hand gestures as he continued his story, “And y’know… There’s the kid in the infirmary… There was this agent who cared for me… I–I loved him; he made me whole again after Pepper and Steve, then,” A pained chuckle escapes from him, “The universe really, really loves watching me suffer, then he dies in an explosion… And then the kid gets kidnapped next, get caught up in a fire and another explosion, and he may not survive this… I–I said he will, but let’s be honest, he’s a walking corpse at this point… ” He bit his lip as he looked at Tony, “I am so done. I can’t take this anymore…” He mumbled, “I mean, hell, I’ve lived a pretty great life, I think, Scuba can help you guys get home… He’s smart enough, he…” And as he kept rambling, subconsciously, he’s been slowly pointing his palm up to himself, activating his repulsor. With the fact that his suit is mostly damaged, the efficiency may not be the best, but if Tony knows anything about himself and the capabilities of an Iron Man suit, the way it glowed and hummed sounded a lot more dangerous than it should have. 

Instinctively, Tony grasped onto his wrist and turned the latter’s hand away. “No!” He suddenly yelled out, causing his Irish counterpart to flinch a little. Tony lowered the volume of his voice after noticing him flinch, “Stop that,” He said sternly. Irish Stark looked up to him blankly, pulling his wrist away from him. “You don’t tell me what to do. You haven’t been abused by everyone you met. Your team’s the most sane I’ve seen!”

“That’s not all true…” Tony mumbled under his breath. Well, they’ve had their fair share of problems, but if he was being fair, it wasn’t anything that ended with so much horror and dread unlike this, but he can’t just leave his counterpart like this, especially in this state. It was like the only thing he was holding onto was the fact that the Avengers were here, and he had to help him. Tony betted that after they left, he would let the voices in his head control him and end his life, and the fact he just knows he’s going to do it is heartbreaking. The very thought of leaving someone like this, knowing the worse to come after they leave is something he cannot stand. 

“Look, what about that kid upstairs? Your son needs you.” 

“He’s not my son…”

Yeah, like Tony’s believing that. He knows what he saw. “Still. He believes in you.” 

“He’s going to die anyway…”

“No, he’s not. You told him he won’t. Don’t you see the way he looked at you? He believed you. He may not be able to make it, but he’s holding on to that hope that he will , because you told him he will. If you’re gone and he’s still here, what then? Who’s going to take care of him? You’re not just leaving a whole city to fend for itself by giving up being Iron Man, you’re leaving a damn kid who probably thinks you’re the greatest man he’s ever met. He’s eventually going to walk in here and see you dead. Is that the kinda legacy you wanna leave behind?” 

Irish Stark was verbally unresponsive, but the way his eyes widened said everything. Tony isn’t great at comforting people either, but his subtle facial expression meant everything to him. It let him knew that at least something snapped in his counterpart’s brain.  “I’m sorry…” The latter muttered, his voice barely a whisper. “I just….” He held his hand up to his eyes, rubbing away the tears that felt like were coming, sniffling as he did. “Gosh, this is embarrassing as hell…”

“It’s not,” Tony put a hand on his shoulder for comfort. “Hey, we all feel like crying sometimes… Y’know I thought that crying made you weak too for a long time.” 

“Your Dad thought you that, didn’t he?” 

“Yep…” 

“Howard’s a bitch in every universe then, huh?” 

Tony almost snorted at that, despite the dire situation. “Yep.” He heaved a small sigh. “Look, you know you’re not alone in this. That sounds like shitty and basic advice, but it isn’t the number one thing people say if it isn’t true right?” He forced a small smile, “I’ve been there myself. The ‘It’d be better if I jumped off the balcony of Avengers Tower’ or ‘What if I just repulsored myself in the face’... Everything. But I had people with me; my Avengers. Sure we get in arguments a lot, they left me too at some point. Hell, we disbanded about two or so times already, but at the end of the day, I know they love me as much I love them, and we listen to each other. Just like how I’m here listening to you right now. I know things look really grim, but you’ve got the kid, that scuba diver guy, hell, even me .” He says, gently pulling his chin upward to have his counterpart face him. He had a warm smile spread across his face, “I’m here. I’ll listen to you. I want to hear everything.” He said softly. Irish Stark’s sullen gaze had grown watery then. He felt like he was about to break. But not here, not now, not with him, not ever; not with anyone… But damn him. Damn his kind words, his sweet smile, and his comforting gestures. 

And damn the fact that Irish Stark let the waterworks flow as he wrapped his arms around him, holding to him as if he’s the last light he’ll ever see. Tony was shocked at first. He wasn’t much of a hugger, and he didn’t peg his counterpart to be one too, but here he was, for some reason, returning the gesture and letting the latter cry it out, ramble on, while Tony stood there, not saying a word but replying with physical comfort instead as his counterpart choked out sobs, telling him how much everything hurted, how he’s been wearing his suit every day and night, even while sleeping at night; so much so that it made him afraid of the world around him, that he felt so claustrophobic and that he felt like he couldn't breathe anymore; how he hadn’t felt human. How he cried for hours a day out of the blue, getting angry over things he couldn’t control, of the people he knew he couldn’t bring back. How he feared the public and the backlash he received. His fears of just how unstable he could get and just to what level self-restraint he has yet before he completely loses his mind and ends up hurting his kid from the stress and anger that’s been overwhelming him for years. 

Words were unneeded, however, sometimes unnecessary even. All the latter needed was someone; a pillar of strength; a sign that he hadn’t lost everything and everyone just yet, and Tony was ready to put it all aside for him; to be everything he needed right now.

After the moment they had in the lab, the two came back with the equipment they needed for the machine. They were asked what took them so long of course, and Irish Stark didn’t look like he really knew how to reply, so Tony stepped in and made a couple of excuses. He could’ve sworn that his sad counterpart smiled a little as he looked thankful that he didn’t need to exactly talk any more than he already had accidentally poured out during their time together earlier.  They finished their machine and located where the next gateway was. For some reason, it was all the way in New York atop snowy mountains just a couple of kilometers near a ski resort. Taking a jet, they all flew over there then, and just as they thought, as Scott extends his hand out to the open air, the outline of a door emerges as a door itself forms inwardly and comes into physical existence. “Oh, hey, that actually worked,” He mumbled to himself as he twisted the knob and opened the door that seemingly came out of nowhere. 

Everybody says their goodbyes and thanks Scuba and the Irish Tony for all of their help, except the latter seemed to be pre–occupied with something. He wasn’t even looking at them, he was looking at something else. 

Tony, concerned as hell for his counterpart’s mental health, ambled over to him while everybody else was currently distracted with each other. He put a hand on his shoulder. “You alright?” He asked, earnestly.  His alternate self turned around and mumbled something that sounded more like a haphazard ‘yes’. 

“What’re you looking at?” Tony asks, and so the latter turns his gaze back to what he was looking at earlier. “That.” His counterpart answered. 

It was nothing more but just a wooden cottage. It looked a bit worn, but there was smoke coming from the chimney, so it was in use; not to mention, the many solar panels on the roof, and other technological equipment around. Although, aside from that, there was nothing suspicious of the place at all. It was just a little house out in the cold wilderness. The only thing of interest was someone walking out of the cottage with a German shepherd jovially following afterwards. Tony couldn’t make out the features except that the man was blonde, tall, and had a muscular build.  Irish Stark, on the other hand, seemed to be stunned at the sight of the man, as if he had seen a ghost. Tony was about to ask if he knew him, but his Steve called for him and said that they had to go. “Just a second,” He replied back to him before turning over to his Irish counterpart. “Hey, we have to leave now,” That was then a wild but seemingly brilliant idea came to mind. “Y’know, you could come home with us. Take the kid with you, we wouldn’t mind. You’ll have a happy life there, with us, together, I promise that.” 

It seemed that Irish Stark thought it over for a moment before shaking his head with a small grin forming on his pale lips. “I appreciate it, but no thank you. Like you said, I’ve got so much to live for… Here , where I belong. Besides, I haven’t completely lost everyone yet, I guess. I think I’ll manage.”

Tony nodded back, smiling warmly back at him, “I just know your scuba friend’s gonna be the best listener. You take care of yourself, alright?” 

“No promises,” His counterpart shrugged. “...But you too. Good luck on getting home, other me.” 

As the two were about to depart, Irish Stark raised an eyebrow as he put his arms wide open, insinuating one last hug with a cheeky smirk on his face. Tony playfully rolled his eyes as he accepted the hug. “Softie,” He whispered teasingly, earning a genuine chuckle out of the latter. 

And after their little touching moment, the Avengers left to traverse to a new world yet again. 

Chapter Text

As if they haven’t ventured enough, here they are again, walking the seemingly endless pathway of floating doors that all lead to who knows where. They trudged on because they needed to, as they did before, sometimes peeking through doors, twisting handles and knobs that won’t even open and such like. Their trip had gotten quieter and quieter after the first few… Hundred or so… It could have been a hundred; it could have been more or less; they weren’t sure anymore.

Eventually, everybody was put to a halt as they heard a rather loud thud and a familiar grumble echoing from behind them. They all turned their heads, only to see that Hulk had decidedly sat down on the floor with his arms crossed and a sour expression plastered on his face. “Hulk tired,” He huffed – that much was obvious. “Too much is hurting Hulk’s brain…”

There was a moment of silence before Clint heaved a sigh and walked over to his side, “I really hate to say this, but he’s got a point. I’m tired too… I mean, all this screaming and fighting is practically our daily routine, but… The Multiverse, well….” His words trailed off and hung vaguely in the air, but the solemn looks on everybody’s faces had hinted that they already understood what they meant, much more when Sam subconsciously blurted out something about that one universe where everybody died and they were the only one who were there to bear witness to a whole entire universe suddenly become extinct. It may not have been Sam’s intentions to make them all remember, but now he mentioned it, the trauma of witnessing it had came back to bite them all again and it was burdening, and Tony hasn’t even gotten to tell about the fact that he just talked an alternative him out of suicide. The Multiverse was a wondrous mess; certainly a phenomenal madness, but even for supposedly happy people like them, too much of it can strip their sanity until the thought of it was practically extinct from their already drained minds. 

“What about New York?” Says Sam, “We can’t just sit here and take a break while the Infinity Avengers are doing who knows what to the people.” 

The fact that he had a point made the others all the more annoyed with the whole situation. They're so… Tired.

Scott took a deep breath and ambled over to Clint’s side. “Five minutes,” He says, after what felt like an eternity of silence. “We’ll take five minutes, take a breather, and then we pick ourselves back up and carry on.” With that, he too took the moment to sit on the floor, which his legs absolutely thanked him for.

“Seriously?” Natasha scoffed with arms crossed, still standing and ready to strut her legs even if her mind and body is telling her otherwise as well. Thor couldn’t help but share her reaction, “Lives are at stake. These five minutes may be for us to sit around and dawdle, while these five minutes could be for fighting for their lives for somebody else.” 

Clint was starting to get rather infuriated with this. They’ve been trekking through different worlds for who knows how long, exposing themselves to trauma nobody will ever understand, and they haven’t even taken a breather since the moment the Infinity Avengers showed up and ruined their ‘vacation’.“Oh c’mon, Goldilocks, five minutes is literally nothing. Just shut up, will you?”

Thor grits his teeth, his eyebrows furrowing at Clint’s insulting tone. “You dare, archer?” He snarled, gripping Mjolnir a little more than he usually would. Steve, of course, immediately noticed how things were starting to de–escalate into chaos again. He placed a hand on Thor’s chest, pushing him back a little as he saw him advance forward towards Clint. Thor snapped his head towards Steve, and Steve sternly shook his head. “We’re all tired, I know, which is why it isn’t worth it to be fighting right now, is it?”

Thor’s previously frustrated expression softened with a sigh as he shamefully averted his gaze away. “No… No, it is not.” 

Tony had been silent this whole time; trying to make sense with all the hurt going on in his own head to make a choice for the team; this wasn’t the first time they were divided over opinions – oh, it’s practically become a regular routine at this point, but some times are just more worse than others. What is he to say? That he’s tired? Of course he’s tired. If he could just drill a charger into his brain, he would. 

If they aren’t happy anymore, then they should just leave. Abandon the others and keep moving.

Woah, wait, where did that horrible thought come from?!

No, Tony can’t say that. 

…Even if his intrusive thoughts want him to. 

“Tony…”

No, hell no, he can’t let his whole team just crumble for the third time. What if the next time he’s going to end up like that one from 199999, they’re all kicking each other in the face like they’ve never had good moments with each other in the past… Or even worse, what if he winds up all alone and all the scary thoughts that tell him to bleed come back, like the Irish one?

“ Tony!” A familiar voice breaks him out of his spiraling thoughts. He turned to his side and noticed Steve and his hand on his shoulder. “...Are you okay?”

No, I’m not.

“Yep.” Tony choked, “Just… Peachy.” His gaze turns back to his team who have all their eyes back towards him, which honestly kind of sent a chill down his spine. What the hell is happening to him? He shouldn’t be this stressed out. He took a deep breath and finally answered, “I say… One more.” And that got a lot of raised eyebrows at him. “One more door,” And that got him a lot of tired groans. Who knows? Maybe the next one is our ride home.” Even his fake optimism was starting to not work; usually, he was better at pep talks even when half of the time he’s too tired to mean any of what he said. “Now c’mon, get up, and let’s get moving,” He says sternly before turning and walking away, hearing the others mumbling and shuffling behind him. Steve catches up with him, “You don’t look fine.” Duh.

“I’ll be honest, Steve,” Says Tony as he turns over to him while mindlessly walking the seemingly endless hallway of infinite possibilities, “I’m falling apart right now, but so is New York, so what's more important?” 

“Yo–”

“–New York. Great answer. A+.” And before his mouth can relinquish any more words he’ll most likely regret later, he looks straight ahead and walks even faster. He just certainly hopes this next universe is something… Slightly better. Maybe this time, they’re all cuddly bunnies; a grey bunny with a hammer and a helmet, and a white one with a tiny shield. Yeah, that’d be nice.  Tony takes the initiative and turns the knob on the next door he finds. He didn’t even read the label before opening the door, immediately peeking inside, he’s met with…. A grey sky… Black skyscrapers that almost look like fake silhouettes…. Just what they needed.  

“Well, hey there, copycat.” A voice rings out from within the alternate universe, a familiar one at that, that caused Tony to open the door wider and have his faceplate shoot upwards since he wants to see this with his own eyes. 

They were met with another group of Avengers, and standing in front was this universe’s Stark, who also flipped his faceplate up with a grin. “I see you still haven’t combed your hair,” He teases. Tony, astonished, rushes towards him. “It’s you!” He gasps as he jumps in for an embrace, causing both of their armours to clank. “Ohhh, I thought I’d never see you again.” He says, burying his head into the crook of the alternate Stark’s neck.  Alternate Stark smiled softly as he wrapped his arms around him too and basked in the hug. “I was kind of hoping you’d never come back,” He awkwardly chuckled a little, “If you’re here, then it means you’ve gotten yourself lost again.” 

The rest of the alternate Avengers didn’t seem all that surprised anymore to see visitors, especially the intruding Tony who seemed to have been here before, meanwhile our Avengers weren’t surprised by the fact that their Tony was keeping more secrets from them again.

Tony pulled back from the back, “Yeah, well… I’m not the only one who’s lost.” With that, he motions to his Avengers, still kind of standing by the door. Sam awkwardly waves, meanwhile Clint rolls his eyes, “Great, more Finding–Out–Stuff–Tony–Should’ve–Told–Us—Earlier . Just what we needed, by the way, where the hell is this again?”

Scott glances over to the back of the door to check the label, “8096,”  He answered. 

The other Stark with the amber eyes and distinguishable pointy bangs waves back before turning back to Tony. “Oh, so you’ve brought your whole team with you this time,” He mused, “Did your giant toaster go haywire again, or…” 

Tony rolled his eyes with a small scoff, “Evil, cosmic versions of us kicked us out of our own universe, and we’ve been trying to find a way home. Yours is, like, the hundredth place we’ve been to so far.” 

“Sounds crazy,” The other mused out loud.

“I know, I’m literally on the brink of insanity. So help me, I feel like I’m going colourblind.” Tony’s eyes then gaze over to the dark skies and the rest of the city that lacked any colour. The only ones who seemed to still be bright and shiny were this universe’s Avengers.

“Oh, no, you’re not colourblind,” The latter corrects, “That’s just kinda like that now. Someone vacuumed every ounce of life since the last time you’ve been here.” 

“ Excuse me?”  

The other Tony looks at him kind of weird before sighing and awkwardly explaining, “We… Aren’t sure what happened either, but a year after you went home the first time, things have been getting weird; people were acting sluggish and dead – sometimes they’d just pause on the sidewalk and stand there like a statue, the weather began to not make any sense then suddenly, next thing we knew, the whole world turned into a 50s TV show. Craziest thing we’re the only one who can move and talk,” He then picked up a small pebble and threw it at a supposed passer–by who was seemingly frozen in place. The pebble just bounced off of him and landed back on the pavement ungracefully. “See?”

“Fascinating,” Tony couldn’t help but comment. 

“I know, right?” Says the other him. 

“How come you and the others aren’t affected?”

The other Stark shrugs, “Who knows,” He answers, “Maybe it’s only time that, at some point, we’ll stop existing too.” 

Tony paled at that response, out of all of the chaos of the multiverse, this place was his only safe haven, and this man being the only one out here to keep him calm and to pull back some sanity into him. He was about to step forward, put a hand on his shoulder, and tell him not to say things like that, but as he took a step towards him, Tony ended up stepping on a conveniently plot–relevant puddle of which began to glitch in and out of existence upon contact. Tony stumbled backwards, looking down in both curiosity and stupefaction.  The other Stark then pulled him further away from the puddle that looked like it was having a seizure. “Yeah, don’t go near that… None of us really figured out why water does that yet, and for all we know, it could suck us into a black hole or something.” 

“...Even if it is pretty intriguing.” 

Other Stark shot him a knowing look, “No.” but Tony turned to him with a small grin on his face, “Yes.” 

And thus, the two scurry off to science geek things out together. 

Meanwhile, there were the other Avengers with their respective counterparts – though it seems that some interactions went better than others; Steve was kind of intimidated by the size of the wall– I–I mean, other him before him. Scott was a bit weirded out seeing Hank as Yellowjacket, which caused for the redhead to ask why and how did he get so edgy , to which caused for Hank to answer with a scoff and denial of being called edgy, while Janet piped in to answer that “He was going through a phase,” to which Hank grumbly answers with “It’s not a phase, Jan!” 

Sam, meanwhile, felt a little out of place considering that he couldn’t find his counterpart, but it was pretty fun chatting with Carol and Vision nonetheless. Thor, however, felt a bit embarrassed because his often loud, giggly and amiable demeanour didn’t really match the more stern and mature one that his counterpart had. The two Hawkeyes, meanwhile, had ended up roasting each other, especially with what they thought to be bad costume design, which caused for Sam to rush over and hold back their Clint, while Jan flying over to do the same with theirs. “Boys, boys, you’re both pretty, okay?” She says, while Sam grunts, trying to help pull them away from each other. “Yeah, what she said!” 

And while the Hawkeyes can’t seem to stand each other, the Widows, however, were enjoying their little ladies’ talk. Instead of conversing about spy work, they ended up talking about their respective teams, how much they sometimes can’t stand them, and then the conversation derailed into talking about shampoo brands and hair care routines. Hulk and Bruce, meanwhile, seemed surprisingly calm with each other. Hulk wasn’t sure how he feels about seeing a different Bruce right in front of him, and Bruce doesn’t really know how to feel about the Hulk being there too. 

After what felt like an eternity of silence matched with a healthy daily dose of prolonged eye contact, Bruce awkwardly spoke up, “So… You and him…” 

“Banner n’ Hulk are chill.” 

“Nice.” 

“You?”

“I get to come out on weekends.” 

“Cool.”

Truly the most peak conversation of all time. Pinnacle of social interaction. 

A little while later, with the other Avengers having a banter, we join back with the Starks who were now entering into the void of doors. 

“Woah,” The other stark mumbles, certainly flabbergasted by the sight. “So this is what the Multiverse looks like?” 

“I guess so,” Tony answers, “Well, I’ve never seen these before back when I got lost in an alternate universe the first time, so, there’s a first time for everything, I guess.” He shrugged. The other Tony only nodded as he continued to amble around the void in curiosity and intrigue. His hand glazed over a door knob he found before retracting it, knowing better than to mess with things he knows of which can bring harrowing consequences to not only him but to his team as well – the multiversal travelers who have taken a visit to their universe is already a prime example of that. He stepped back and turned to side–swept bangs Tony, “You must’ve seen a lot of incredible things then, huh?”

The latter smiled grimly, “If you mean trying to talk ‘yourself’ out of suicide, watching civilization fall apart and watch all of humanity go extinct, then yeah, pretty incredible indeed…” 

The other Tony couldn’t help but shudder at even the thought of imagining what that could’ve looked like upon hearing all that. “At least you guys managed to get out okay.” 

Tony took in a sharp inhale, glancing to the achromatic world through the open doorway, while his Avengers were still chatting amongst themselves and their counterparts, before then turning back to the other Tony with the pointy bangs. “Honestly…” He sighed, “Sometimes I wished we didn’t. Well… I wish I didn’t at least.” 

Other him furrowed his eyebrows, “... What?”  

“It’s just…” Tony bit his lip. Gosh, opening up to people was never easy, even if it was to himself, technically. “We’ve been here for a very long time. For all we know, our home probably isn’t even there anymore,” He says coldly, “I probably shouldn’t even call it ours ‘cause it’s someone else’s now… Some other team of glorified edgelords…” He added in, bitterly. Gosh damn that other him and his stupid My Chemical Romance getup. Fuck, he was already feeling the tears threatening to poke through his eyes. “”Whoever cosmic entity is out there who, I dunno, watches over the multiverse or something… They’re playing a sick joke on us, and I am so… Done. I’d rather walk into another forsaken universe and accept it as my death bed.” 

Before he can ramble on any further, the other Tony puts a hand on his shoulder, “Stop that.” He said sternly though with a hint of melancholy to his tone. Tony shoots a glare at him, “You don’t tell me what to do,” He scoffed, “You haven’t seen the horrors I’ve seen. Hell, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t even matter that we’re lost out here. There’s a gazillion other Avengers out there – some even cooler than us. Why do we even matter–”

“–Because you’re you. ”

“...What?” 

“We both may be Tony Stark, but we don’t look exactly the same, do we? We don’t share the same hair, the same eyes. Hell, even our voices are extremely different,” The other Tony with the pointy bangs heaved a small sigh, “You’re right. I don’t know where any of you have been or the things you’ve seen, but I know that one thing’s for sure is that in a vast multiverse of infinite possibilities, there’s only one of you , only of your Avengers, and there’s a universe out there who needs those people right now; not me, not some other Cap, or some other Widow — you guys. ” 

Tony almost actually teared up at that. He shook his head before he could make a mess of himself, more than he already has. Sniffling a little, he replied, “You really know how to give one hell of a pep talk, huh?”

The latter chuckled a little, “Of course,” He answers with a small, warm smile on his face, “Broken people always know how to fix broken things, am I right?” 

With renewed determination, the team carries on to traversing through the infinite amount of doors in the endless void of fever dreams and dastard nightmares. The walk was kind of quiet but everyone seemed to have lightened moods now thanks to that one accidental visit. Not to mention, it looks like Natasha got a new hairstyle, of which Clint commented on, “So, what’s with the braid?”

“The other Widow and I braided each other’s hairs for fun, Wasp got little twin tails.” Was Natasha smiling for once?... Clint certainly noticed it and though he found it absolutely adorable, it kind of creeped him out. “That sounds… Cute?”

“Yeah,” Natasha nodded, gleefully, proudly rocking her cute braid, “We would’ve invited Carol and both Thors, but they were all kind of getting distracted because you and the other Hawkeye were arguing about… What was it again? Whose uniform was… Cringier?”

“For the record,” Clint then readjusts his iconic eggplant–coloured sunglasses, “He’s got absolutely nothing on my vibe. He had the cringy fit, that’s for sure. My sunglasses pull the whole outfit together. It’s what takes home the win,” He smirks proudly, “Right, Nat?”

Natasha wasn’t sure whether to indulge and flatter him or speak her mind and tell him that he looks like a dork, which he pretty much is. “Uh, sure,” She awkwardly chooses to answer instead.  Although their little conversation was put to a halt as Steve called them over as they were about to check out another door. Everybody huddled together as Tony’s hand hovered over the door knob. He glanced up to the label ‘616’ before taking in a deep breath, “Here we go, Third time’s the – no – A hundred time’s the charm,” He mumbled to himself before twisting the door knob and pushing open the door.  Walking through, they were met with what looked like a garage turned into a makeshift lab that looked like something similar to what Tony had at home; in fact, the place was probably owned by another Stark considering the familiar tech and the armour pieces lying around – like the rusty helmet for example that had permanent stains that made it look like it was eternally crying. Aside from that, there was empty bottles of beer lying around, as well as empty noodle cups – some of which seemed to have not properly had been discarded, as well as some SI documents. Something something about a guy named Feilong? 

“So…” Tony spoke up, “First impressions?” Although before anybody could even say anything else, they were jumpscared with repulsors charged and aimed at their faces. “Who the hell are you all and how’d you get here inside the safehouse?” The attacker bore a suit of armour that somewhat resembled similarities to that of an Iron Man design. The armour was coloured hot pink and black with gold trims. Tony slowly put his hands up even though the rest of the team behind him was already preparing to retaliate if needed to. “Look, um… Female me?” He’s not really sure. “We’re not–” 

And before he can even finish his answer, another person walked in; messy long black hair that almost reached his shoulders, tired blue eyes, unkempt goatee, red hoodie and grey sweatpants. Yeah, that guy kinda looks more like the Tony Stark of this universe. “What’s going on here?” 

“Intruders,” The pink ‘Iron Man’ answers. The other actual Stark casually sips the can of Red Bull he had in his hand, “Oh c’mon, Ri, they look harmless.” 

“Yes we are,” Tony chimes in, trying to save their skin. The pin kIron Woman sighed as she put her repulsors down and slowly stepped away. The other Stark, however, stepped forward towards the lot. “Sorry about that, lots of bad things have been happening, and we’re all kinda on edge lately,” He says, earning nods of understanding from the Avengers. Stark with the Red Bull then continues, “This is Riri Williams by the way, a.k.a Ironheart, a good friend of mine,” He then motions towards to her with his free hand, whereas the latter pulled up her faceplate, revealing a young black girl underneath, and waved a little, thus the Avengers awkwardly waved back, “And you guys,” The other Stark turns back to them, “Are from another universe, right? Are you guys lost?”

“How’d you know?” Clint couldn’t help but interject. The latter couldn’t help but chuckle a little, “You guys aren’t the first ones,” He says, “Lucky that you aren’t because it’s happened so much over the years that I’ve ended up inventing a wayfinder,” He then turns to Riri, “Can you get it for me?” 

“Yeah, where is it though?” 

“It’s, um…” The latter awkwardly snapped his fingers, trying to remember, “In a box, somewhere, near the tool cabinet… I think.” Riri raised an eyebrow, growing even more confused.  

Riri playfully rolled her eyes, scoffing as she walks away to find that device Stark with the Red Bull can’t even seem to remember where he put it.

“Thanks, Ri!” The man in question yelled after her before turning back to the Avengers again, “Anyway, I’m curious to know how you all got here in the first place.” 

Tony motioned to the open doorway, “Through there,” he answers as alternate him ambles through and into the void, “Some cosmic versions of us banished us to some ruined world, then we walked through a tunnel and found this abyss filled with gateways to other universes.” 

The other Tony sips his Red Bull in dumbfoundment. “I’ve heard and seen of machines made to fast travel throughout the universe, but nothing like a fever dream of an endless amount of doors.”

“So, you’re saying you’ve dabbled with the multiverse before?” Steve queried. 

“Frankly, I can’t really remember,” Stark with the Red Bull admits sheepishly, “My memory’s been kind of hazy and sometimes it feels like things I’ve experienced never actually happened,” He then takes another sip from the can, “Result of one too many concussions in a lifetime, I guess,” He shrugged. Not a moment later, Riri came back with a small handheld device with a screen on it. “It’s a bit dusty, but should still work,” She says, handing it over to Stark with the Red Bull. He briefly thanked her before fiddling with the device, “Right, where did you guys come from?” 

“I… Um…” Tony stumbles, awkwardly looking at Steve for help, who was just looking at him too. As it seems, nobody knows what their universe number is… Or whatever the hell that is labeled on the door. They probably have a door somewhere, right? Of course they do. Tony should stop thinking the worse already came and New York is already on fire thanks to the moronic edgelords that’s taking over their universe right now. The latter Stark takes it, however, that they don’t know. He heaved a small sigh, “Here, give me your hand,” He instructs, whereas Tony complies and puts his hand out. Other him slide the wayfinder under his palm as a light blue hologram appeared from the screen and scanned Tony’s loved hand. Not a moment later, the hologram dispersed. 

CALIBRATION COMPLETE

MATCH FOUND

“There you go,” says the alternate Stark, “Just follow the GPS, and if there isn’t any third–party interference, it should take you straight to the gateway you need to go through.” 

Tony could literally kiss him right now.  

But that would be kinda weird, so he just stumbled out an awkward thank you to both the other Stark and Riri before they then went on their merry way again. How reliable is the wayfinder, they’re not sure yet, but th either Tony – despite his less than stellar appearance – seemed pretty trustworthy and reliable. 

Hastily traversing through the seemingly endless void, the device continued to beep once or twice with an arrow pointing to whichever direction they needed to head to, and eventually it led them to another door, go figure. The label on this one seemed a bit faded and almost unreadable, but with a bit of squinting, it spelled out ‘12041’. Tony looks down to the wayfinder then back up to the door. He glanced to Steve, who stood beside him, “How much are you willing to bet that this is the right one?”

“Two shawarmas and a bottle of diet coke.” 

Tony smirked, “Daring, are we?”

Steve couldn’t help but let out a small snicker, “I just have a gut feeling.” 

“Well, I hope it’s right,” says Tony, taking in a deep inhale before twisting the knob open, only to be met with a small blank room, and… “Aresenal?!” He gasped. 

“Hello Anthony,” The robot greeted, though he happened to be locked in a small and rather tight cage that was suspended from the ceiling. “Although I would like to clarify that I am not the real Arsenal. I am a fragment of his synthesized memories.” 

Thor stepped forward, “You may not be the real one, but you are still Arsenal, and thus, you deserve freedom, my friend.” With that being said, Thor then bashed the cage with Mjolnir, breaking the robot free, of which it thanked him for. 

“ That’s Arsenal?” Scott whispers to Clint. 

“The sentient toaster that Tony would kill himself for? Yeah, that’s Arsenal.” The archer whispers back. 

Tony blinked in stupefaction. Well, he always felt warm and cozy around Arsenal, like how you feel when you are at home, but this was definitely not what they were looking for. He glanced to the wayfinder that still led them to here before turning back up to Arsenal. “I don’t get it. How are you here?” 

“Well, this is where Arsenal sends all of what he consumes, silly Anthony.” 

“...What?” 

“The pocket dimension where everything he absorbs is contained; it is stored here.” 

“ Makes sense,” Tony thought to himself, but a lot of things still weren’t adding up. “Yeah, but how did you get here? In the gateways, in that cage…” 

“If you mean the other doors, then I am unaware to where they lead to. The cage, however, would be quite the long story. Would you like me to tell it?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Understood,” Arsenal says, his several eyes then projecting a hologram of past events that had occurred, but presented in his point of view. “After Ultron had invaded Arsenal’s systems, you may recall that the essences of the Infinity Stones were drained. They were not lost, however, but rather, absorbed and put into the pocket dimension where everything else is contained,” He explains, “Ultron seemed to have been blinded to that aspect. He believed that he would be able to harness the power of the stones, but instead, it was vacuumed into somewhere else, somewhere he was not able to find at the time,” He states, “Without a form to hold onto, though, the Infinity Stones manifested themselves as the beings they last saw before being drained, which were–”
 

“–The Avengers,” Tony couldn’t help but continue for him as things were starting to piece together in their minds. 

“That is correct,” Arsenal continues, “They copied not only your appearances and prowess, but also your personalities, thoughts and memories,” He says, “They soonly learned that there was a way out of the pocket dimension through Arsenal–” 

“–And they trapped you in that cage, forcing you to help with their escape,” Thor interjected. If robots had feelings, Arsenal would be hurt right now that the Avengers keep interrupting him but he has no bad bone in his endo–skeleton. “Precisely,” Arsenal answers, looking down, defeatedly, for a moment, as he recalled the horrors of these mean Avengers. “They did not even say please nor thank you.”

“Absolutely atrocious,” Steve grumbled, earning a sad nod from the poor robot.

“Well, if you helped them , then that means you can help us too,” says Natasha. 

“That is correct,” The robot answers, “Although I must warn you that I only have enough power left for only one return trip. If anything happens, I will not be able to help you again. Are you sure you would like to proceed?”

“Yes,” Tony answers almost immediately, “ Please. ”

“Understood,” Arsenal nodded, putting his arms out as a small beam of light begins to form in his metal palms, “Anthony,” He called out and Tony raises an eyebrow, “Arsenal apologizes for leaving you so soon. He is sorry that he was not there to witness the happy moments your father would have longed to see,” HE says, then transferring the glowy ball of energy from both hands to only one, using his free one to press it to Tony’s chest, “And the moments you wish to hide from others; the ones where you needed a friend the most. And he hopes you are not upset with his fatal decision, and that he hopes you know that he loves you.” 

Tony couldn’t help but put his hand around the back of Arsenal’s. If he was being honest, even if it was already a couple years since then, he still hasn’t gotten over what happened, and even something as small as a bright desk lamp sometimes gives him flashbacks to Arsenal shooting himself into the sun, not to mention, almost dying there himself if it weren’t for Thor saving him. Sometimes he wished he could still have Arsenal around; to be pampered by him and heal his inner child. And even this little glimpse of his thoroughly mourned–over robot friend had left all of his years of desperately trying to forget and move on completely undone.

“Are you gonna cry again?” Clint suddenly rudely interrupted from the back. Tony was cut from his sad and sentimental thoughts as he snapped his head towards him. “Ugh, shut up, Clint!” He scoffed. 

Arsenal slipped his hand away as he went back to focusing on the current task after getting sidetracked as well. He peeks over to the rest of the group, “Goodbye Avengers,” then back to Tony, “And Anthony.”

“Goodbye Arsenal… Again.” Tony tried to keep a straight face despite the betrayal of the obvious melancholy seeping through in his voice. “I love you too. Thanks for saving us.” 

Arsenal, despite his blank and mundane faceplate that held not a single emotion ever, seemed rather happy with that response from him; as if he was just validated and it made all his circuits inside feel tingly and elated. He waved as zealously as he can as he sends them all off as a strong blast of light engulfs the Avengers and momentarily blinds them.  As the light disperses, several groans rung out amongst the team. It seems that Arsenal failed to mention the side effects of temporary blindness and massive headaches to name a few. 

Clint held his throbbing head as he adjusted his sunglasses, “Are we back?... Is this our Manhattan?” 

It was hard to tell at first and not a single one of them had any answers. Tony picked himself up from the pavement with a small groan, suddenly picking up the sounds of nearby voices with the enhanced hearing of his suit.

“Idiots!” He hears, “That’s not how you make people succumb. Ugh, why do I even work with any of you…” Tony didn’t need to scan to know whose voice that belonged to – it was his. 

He floated upwards to get an aerial view of their surroundings. The voice sounded close, but where was it? Just a few meters away, he sees a group of civilians cowering in fear with the Infinity Avengers before them, toying with them, and then derailing into bickering with one another – well, they surely got that latter part accurate.  “Guys,” Tony calls out to the rest of the team, “We’re home.” The team would be happily celebrating right now if it weren’t for the cold tone Tony had which alluded that the job wasn’t done just yet , whereas after following Tony, they see it for themselves and they remember the intruders who had been mimicking them. 

It was about time the Avengers ended this mess. 

Tony fired a repulsor shot at the back of Infinity Stark’s helmet, which caused the latter to snap his head towards the origin of the shot, along with the other Infinity Avengers to turn around as well. Infinity Cap gasps, “The Avengers are still alive?!” 

Infinity Stark hits him at the back of his helmet, “They’re not the Avengers, remember? We…” He cut himself off as his words began to falter. With a grumble, he shook himself off his thoughts, “...W–We are!” Though his tone didn’t seem so convinced of his own lie anymore.

“You think you can just casually kick us out of our own universe and colonize it?” Tony interjects as they arrive to the scene, “If you really were us then you should know by now that we have a history of being presumed dead by cosmic dictators and coming back anyway.” He flew up higher in the air, charging his repulsors, preparing to strike and take their home back, “Avengers, assemble!” 

Infinity Stark gritted his teeth under his mask, mimicking Tony’s preparation. “Avengers, attack!” 

And then cue your episode–standard fight scene. 

As the fight started, the group of civilians fled for their lives. The Avengers and their villainous counterparts went head to head against each other, and with experiences of fighting for their survival and miraculous escapes in other universes, they managed to hold themselves better and longer than they initially did before being banished, but not unfortunately for long; not when their opponents are literally the living embodiments of the Infinity Stones. 

“I don’t wanna alarm you guys,” Clint interjects, “But we’re kinda getting our asses whooped right now.” And with that being said, he was suddenly uppercutted into oblivion by Infinity Hulk. 

“If I’m being honest,” says itty bitty Scott as he frantically runs around, trying to avoid getting squashed by Infinity Thor’s Mjolnir. “We can’t truly beat them, but we can find a way to contain them instead.” 

Contain. And suddenly, everything clicks into place in Tony’s brain. “Scott, I love you,” He blurts out as he flies out of the battlefield, “Avengers, I’ve got an idea. Buy me some time.” And with that, he blasted off to Avengers Tower. Infinity Stark, who was in the heat of the battle as well, noticed him leaving. With an infuriated growl, he blasts off as well, changing targets to hunt down Tony instead. Inside Avengers Tower, Tony flies straight into his lab. “JARVIS, are you there, buddy?” He calls out. 

“Always, Mr. Stark.”

“Great, we’ve got a big order to make,” Tony hastily rummages through file cabinets and pulls out a thick and chunky folder, immediately shuffling through its contents.

“Project Arsenal, again?”

Tony rolls his eyes, “Oh, can it, J. This isn’t the time to be jealous. The fate of the universe is at stake here,” He says, scanning the pages about energy containment and the pocket dimension. Thank you Howard for being so incredibly in detail about everything. 

“Your father took three years to build Arsenal.” JARVIS points out.

“Yeah, well, we don’t have that kind of luxury right now, so I’ll just have to recreate his key components in five minutes.” And with that, Tony laid the pages flat on a nearby desk and got to work.

Meanwhile, down in the battlefield, Steve was thrown away, crashing into the dome that was keeping New York from being sucked into the vacuum of space. He groaned, picking himself up from the pavement, gasping, realizing he could’ve fractured the dome from the impact, but to his surprise, the cracks that formed earlier were all starting to heal itself almost immediately, which all didn’t make sense to him at all. As happy as Steve was about the self-healing dome, it was lowering the stakes, which didn’t make sense for the Infinity Avengers who would be threatening to commit genocide if their demands weren’t met.  Curiously, Steve did a bit more experimenting; hitting the dome with his shield, putting a hand to the crack he’s made, which suddenly caused his hand to phase through the crack. The dome warble suddenly as he did, but it didn’t hurt; it didn’t feel like anything. It was as if nothing was there. Space wasn’t real.  Flabbergasted, Steve turned to the others who were still fighting, his eyes landing on Infinity Widow, who caught him glaring at her which seemingly caught her off guard, causing for her to sheepishly turn away from him, which only confirmed Steve’s suspicions about the dome and the true nature of these tyrannical copycats. He dived behind a wall for cover. Pressing on his earpiece, he says, “Tony, I just learned something.” 

“That’s great, Steve, sounds like a good story over sushi someday.” 

“No, seriously, you have to listen to me,” Steve groaned. “The dome isn’t real, New York isn’t in danger. Their Widow must’ve used the power of the Reality Stone to make us think there’s danger. The Infinity Avengers are–” Although before he could finish his sentence, the connection was getting fuzzy until it was gone.

“Sir, the communications satellite has been tampered with.” JARVIS intruders. 

“How the fu–” But before Tony could react, his own earpiece fizzled out and was destroyed right in his ear, which caused for him to let out a yelp as he hastily tried to get the pieces out before it could further damage him. Little did he realize, the doors to the lab had whooshed open earlier and Infinity Stark was there, standing ominously in his black–gold Iron Man suit, using his telekinesis to cause the device to crumble. “You really think you can get away from me?” He growled, his voice echoing, magically. “You’ve been a pain in the ass for too long!” He yelled, hovering up with his boot jets and charging at Tony. 

Tony groaned as he prepared to fight and shot himself out of the way, causing his enemy to miss and crash into something else. “ You’re the one who’s broken into my house, and you have the audacity to call me a pain in your ass??!” He scoffed. Chaos ensued as the two continued to fight. And as expected, Tony was getting his iron butt absolutely handed to him on a silver platter. Repulsors were fired, unibeams were exchanged, greeting each other with kicks and punches. Eventually, Infinity Stark managed to get an upper hand on him – practically mimicking his every move but better; faster and stronger. Throughout the battle in the lab, many things were thrown and broken. As if a destroyed lab wasn’t enough to pain Tony even more, things became more grim as Infinity Stark spotted the Project Arsenal folder, realizing what Tony was trying to do. After dealing more damage to the classic, Infinity Stark charges up another repulsor and blasts the folder to smithereens; its documents inside charred beyond recognition.  “No!” Tony yelled out as he tried his best to hastily scramble to his feet, but he wasn’t fast enough, unfortunately. With that dealt with, Infinity Stark turns to him next, throwing him out of the tower with his telekinesis. Thankfully, Tony’s hard boiled shell helped him survive being hurdled out of a window and what felt like a hundred foot drop, but the scene down on the streets weren’t any prettier. The rest of the Avengers were also unsuccessful in buying Tony some time, and it doesn’t look like the Infinity Avengers are going to be so kind and merciful this time to just send them back to the pocket dimension for eternal damnation again. 

Tony, despite being battered and bruised like the rest of his team, still tried his best to scramble to his feet, but Infinity Stark was already majestically descending from the tower and to the rest of the battlefield below. “When will you accept your defeat?” He mocks, waving his hand to pull Tony up into the air at eye level with him. “That insects, like you and your band of misfits, are always meant to be eliminated.” With that, he charged up a repulsor – with enough power and energy to not only stun anymore, but to kill – pointing it in Tony’s face. 

Tony would be lying if he didn’t admit to feeling like he’s about shit himself right now. He’s got enough trauma to scare off several therapists out of the country, but nothing’s more terrifying than having your own weapon forced against your face and be used by a copy of yourself to kill you. The Avengers were all defeated and apprehended by their Infinity counterparts, and Tony had lost most of the control he had in his body as he was being held right now. Gosh, he really hated not having control; it made him panic over his trauma of Ultron again. But he knew he couldn’t just give up now. They went through hell and back just to get back here. If they’re all gonna go out like this, they better go out as true heroes rather than surrendering cowards. 

Tony had an idea, a reckless one like all the rest, but a last resort nonetheless. 

And with a heavy heart, he pulled up his faceplate and glowered at the figure in front of him, his eyes squinting a bit from the bright glow of the latter’s purple–hued repulsor. “Then kill me.” He mocked, which, of course, caused for a lot of gasps and other horrified reactions to ring out from the rest of the team, as well as a very loud “TONY, NO!” from Steve which ended in more agony for him as his Infinity counterpart held him place, yelling at him to be silent, after Steve had also attempted to wriggle out of his headlock.  Tony, however, played deaf to their words. They should all know by now that him pulling this kind of stunt is nothing new, but that didn’t take away from the fact that it always sends Tony’s heart beating faster than an Olympian’s running.

“Well?” He continued to mock his counterpart, “What’re you waiting for? A countdown?”

Infinity Stark growled in frustration of the man’s words. Despite his adamancy to remove the Avengers, he hasn’t actually fired a shot yet. 

“Bingo,” Tony thought to himself after observing his counterpart’s sudden sheepish behaviour and realizing that what he thought was correct. “You’re scared, aren’t you? Scared to take a life and scared to kill yourself.” 

Infinity Stark bristled at his words, feigning ignorance. “I’m simply letting you relish your last moments before I take your last breath away.” 

“Bluffing,” Tony snickered, “Classic Stark move. Pretending you have everything under control and faking it ‘till you make it. Isn’t that right, me?”

“Shut up!” Infinity Stark shouted, “I’m going to kill you!” 

“THEN SHOOT ME ALREADY, DAMN IT!” 

Infinity Stark was silent, his hand shaking before, eventually, he pulled his repulsor down. Despite Tony’s demand and the infinity stone–powererd copycat’s claim, none of them fell through with any of it; their words nothing more than just bluffs. 

It felt like a heavy burden had just been rid off of Tony’s shoulders when the latter put his weapon down, however. “See?” He speaks up, “You’re incapable of doing harm to us because you have our imprints. You don’t have the capacity to hurt, and me being suicidal be damned, I’m actually scared of dying myself… You’re all just acting to be evil because you need a universe to live in. You have our memories, imprints of our lives, and this is where you remember is home , am I right?” 

Infinity Stark, for the first time ever, lifted his faceplate up. A true copycat in every way, shape and form, but his eyes were certainly something to behold; bright and shining, like his pupils were a gateway to the milky way with stars twinkling inside. Even Tony was mesmerized staring into his gorgeous eyes. Infinity Stark pouted as he averted his beautiful gaze away. “I hate you…” He mumbled, letting him go and ungracefully dropping him to the ground, which was enough confirmation for Tony that he was indeed correct, even if he received that confirmation rather painfully.  Tony picked himself up from the asphalt road, “This sounds really cheesy, but you know I’m right, you could be anything you want to be. Hell, you’re the Infinity Stones. What the hell are you all doing here trying to take over our universe, when you could just make your own? Make something better? A utopia. With our imprints and your powers, I don’t doubt you’ll make amazing things. Something so beautiful and as bright as your eye— A–As the milky way.” 

It felt like the world was at a standstill at that moment, but then Infinity Tony began to smile a little. He glanced to his Avengers, who took the cue to let the others go, and for Infinity Widow to drop the act. As it turns out, Steve was right. New York was fine, they weren’t suspended in a capsule in space. It was all a ruse to scare them. 

“You have enlightened us, Stark,” Infinity Tony speaks up, “I… Will be honest, I hadn’t thought of that.” And yet, somehow, they thought that gaslighting themselves that they’re the real Avengers was the best choice.

He put his hand in the air, waving it in a circular motion. A portal then poofs into existence, sparkly purple smoke emitting from it. “We’ll test the capacities of our abilities safely,” He says, nodding to his team, urging them to come with him. The others didn’t seem to take a liking to the classic team but they seem to never doubt their leader. “Thank you,” The very pretty space–powered man utters as he nods to Tony, “We’ll be seeing you again someday.” 

And as they all stepped through the portal, the rest of the Avengers were relieved that was over, and even more relieved that it didn’t end with Tony’s death. Although their counterparts didn’t leave without a comment from Infinity Stark. He turned back from inside the portal and turned to Tony again, “I also would suggest changing your colour scheme. That palette is absolutely garish.” He said with all sincerity and seriousness before the portal magically poofs into nonexistent. 

Tony blinked, “... Garish?” He may be a little bit offended by that. How dare he? His crimson–gold armour was absolutely stunning unlike that icky black and gold. Ugh, what an emo. Tony bets his counterpart listens to My Chemical Romance and Nirvana in his free time. 

“Oh my gosh, you’re alive…” Steve says as he runs up to Tony and hugs him from behind, which surprised Tony at first, especially because he just knows he’s going to get squished again. Oh no, here it goes again… Tony tried patting Steve from behind. “Steve, I can’t… Breathe.” 

Immediately, the blonde pulled back sheepishly, apologizing for getting a little too ahead of himself again. Although, the others would’ve loved to hug him too. They’ve lost Tony far too many times, and frankly, they’ve all probably had several heart attacks by now each time Tony casually puts his life on the line like that, but now’s not the time to focus on that issue. Now’s the time to celebrate and be happy that it’s all finally over. 

“How’d you know he was going to yield?” Sam interjected. 

“Uh, having a hundred IQ that’s how. Geniuses don’t just tell the secrets to their magic tricks, Sam.” Tony shrugged with a smirk, again, bluffing. Truth be told, he was just as scared as everybody was. He had a small thought about it, after all that he’s learned from the other hims of the multiverse. Though it was just a tiny sliver of hope, he at least had to hold onto it, even if the odds were heavily stacked against him, but he’s not going to admit that. 

Clint stretched his sore arms, “Gosh, I’m so glad to be home. With no giant spiders… No kingdom being eradicated…. No anything!” 

Natasha playfully punched his shoulder, “You act like we haven’t seen and done crazy things in our lives before we even traveled around the multiverse.” 

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Clint shrugged, “But that’s our normal, y’know. I’d rather beat up the Wrecking Crew on Wednesdays again than going through the hell we’ve just gone through.” 

Everybody couldn’t help but agree with that.

“Well, sitting here and sulking about our past experiences isn’t a way to celebrate our grand victory now, is it?” Thor chimed in with a grin. “I, for one, would like to raid the fridge for its delectable contents and have a feast.” 

“Of course you do, blondie.” Hulk chuckled, though he would be lying if he didn’t admit that he was pretty hungry too. 

Scott couldn’t help but laugh as well as he called for his favourite ant to ride on. “First one to the Tower gets dibs on the TV remote!” He announces, shrinking himself, hopping onto his ant and immediately zooming away. 

“Hey, no fair, you got a head start!” Sam whines as he spreads his wings and flies after him. The others in tow with their own quirky modes of transport, with Steve running after the rest of the team, worryingly yelling for them to slow down and be careful, like the mom friend he is. 

Tony grinned as he put down his faceplate and activated his boot jets. But then a thought came to mind as he raised himself up to the skies. He caught a view of the city, their city. He’s lived here for practically decades, and he’s seen all the same streets and noticed all the same cracks on the pavement, and yet, being here again, seeing civilians celebrate in their own ways, reuniting with families, it was a sight to see. A beautiful one.  A part of him still couldn’t believe they were finally home. He then glanced down to the area where the portal had just been in. He wondered how the Infinity Avengers were doing; if they were going to ever come out okay. In a way, they were like babies learning about the world for the first time. Though, to be fair, they kinda were. They were boundless energy living in inanimate rocks since the dawn of time, and now they’ve manifested into people with all of their own unique personalities and problems. 

“Sir, the Avengers are leaving you behind.” JARVIS suddenly announces, cutting Tony out of his thoughts. Tony playfully rolled his eyes, “Oh, don’t worry, J. You know I can just change the channels from my Starkpad anyway.” He snickered, boosting away and back to his home, to have some quality chaos bonding with his family.

Until the next big problem occurs, and they’ll be needed to save their beloved city again, of course. 

Chapter Text

It’s been a few months since that whole drama with the Infinity Avengers, and things have been going back to normal for the most part; fighting their usual bad guys, meeting whacky new allies, sometimes new quirky ‘villains’ pop up every now and then and they humour them by pulling their punches and letting these newbies think they’ve actually got an upperhand on the Avengers before the aforementioned team serves their butts on a silver platter.  It’s become somewhat boring , to say the least. After all of the fantastical things they’ve seen and the extraordinary variants they’ve met, going back to their normal routine back in their own universe just felt kind of mundane now. 

But little did they know, a certain Avenger was going to have the crappiest day of his life today. 

Tony was in his lab, as always. Clint went to Coney Island today and brought the little bird along (despite Sam not wanting to). Tony would have loved to have his lab buddy, but according to Clint’s protests, Tony already had Sam yesterday, so now it was Clint’s turn to borrow the kid, so it was only Tony today… Is what he thought.

Tony was just finishing up one of his and Sam’s newest projects. He planned to finish the prototype today, so he and Sam can proceed with the testing phase when he gets home.. That was until, suddenly, strange purple sparkles began to fill the room. Tony immediately got up from his swivel chair and closely inspected the mysterious aura that seemingly engulfed the lab like smoke – and then it hit him. “ Oh… No.” He grumbled under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as he braced himself for the worst. 

Sounds of tools clattering and things crashing down on the floor erupting the short lived silence as a large and thick puff of smoke emerges on the table and forms into a large circular shape as a familiar figure steps out of what seems to be a portal, incidentally stepping on the prototype on the table and carelessly kicking it out of his path, the invention then crashing and breaking on the floor as well, much to Tony’s dismay. 

As the figure fully steps out of the portal, it then disappears behind him. The figure stares down to a flabbergasted Tony. “hello, Stark,” He greets, “Ugly as always, I see.” 

Tony wasn’t sure what to be mad about right now – the scattered tools, the destroyed prototype or that his edgy copycat is back. He darted a glare at him as he stepped over to clean up his mess. “What’re you doing here?” 

Infinity Stark hopped off of the table like nothing happened and as if his very existence wasn’t already a nuisance. “It pains me to say this, but I… We need your help.”

Tony immediately turns back to him after putting his things away with a stern look as he already assumes the worst. “What happened?”

Infinity Stark – who we will now refer to Space from now on – rolled his eyes as he put his faceplate up. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Stark, it’s not the end of the world,” He scoffed. And despite the shameful insult, Tony was at least a little bit relieved. Space continues, “As you may know, we took your advice to test our capabilities and make our own place to call home. It’s all going surprisingly well so far, except for the fact that everyone is stupid and can’t decide on what they want for New York.” He says, “Hulk says we should have the Eiffel Tower in the middle of Times Square because it looks pretty, and yet Cap kicked it millions of kilometres away as he believes that it doesn’t belong…” He then heaved a rather tired sigh, “In other words, I have been chosen as a sacrifice and require photographic references, so we know what to copy off of.” 

“...And this involves me how?” 

“You tour me, duh,” Space huffs with arms crossed.

Tony had other plans for the afternoon, but he knew better than to say no to an infinity stone that he felt his wrath firsthand in the past already, not to mention the fact that Space was even holding back at the time. 

Heaving a sigh, Tony reluctantly agrees to his demand. “Let me go get my armour,” He says, walking away to a part of his armoury, and assembling his armour onto his body. Space squints, judging him from head to toe. “Seriously?” He comments in a rather disgusted tone. “I thought you already got rid of that garish palette.”

Tony glares at him, “You want my help or not?”

Space frowned as he put his faceplate down, “Yes, I do.” He admits sheepishly.

“Then stop insulting me, dad.”

Tony doesn’t know how he’s suddenly become a tour guide, especially to the same person that tried to get rid of them and claim their universe as their own. Tony ca only pray that this whole thing isn’t actually just a ruse by the Infinity Avengers to get their revenge somehow. 

The two fly around Manhattan, and Tony takes him around to the most popular tourist spots, as well as some of Tony’s personal favourites – such as that one pretzel cart that Tony really loves. Space, at first, was hesitant to eat a caramelized pretzel, but having Tony’s imprints, he had a strange urge to at least taste it despite the disgust and hesitation his own consciousness had. It also didn’t help that Tony was watching him expectantly, which made him feel pressured, but he won’t admit that out loud. 

Space was very silent and quizzical as he ate.

“Well? Is it good?” Tony queried, earning a shrug from Space who answered, “It’s subpar. It’s nothing amazing, but it’s okay, I guess.” However the way the stars in his eyes were twinkling and how eagerly he continued scarfing down that pretzel says otherwise. 

After that little snack break they had, they continued on with the tour. There’s lots to do and so much to see, and yet Space seems rather disinterested now. He was growing bored of the mundane routine of having to follow Tony around and listen to his long–winded and utterly boring info dump about this and that. He’s aware that that’s kind of what the point of a tour is, but he wants to explore cool places and see cool stuff! …Not be told about that old and abandoned warehouse that’s collecting cobwebs; rich history or not, Space does not give a crap about that, and frankly, he’s grown tired of Tony’s exhausting tour.

Currently, the two were flying around overhead the city with Tony rambling about something and Space lagging behind, drowning out the sound of his voice with ethereal ambience of, well, space , internally ringing in his ears. Tony, eventually, caught on and realized that Space wasn’t exactly following him anymore, so he turned and asked if he was doing alright or if he was tired and wanted to call off the tour.

“The latter,” Space replied with a yawn, “You tire me, Stark. You’ve served your purpose and I give my thanks, but I think I want to go do something more exciting now. Farewell, Stark.” And with that, Space summoned a portal beneath his feet and disappears into it.

“Wait!” Tony calls out as he tries to dive into the portal himself, but it disperses into a puff of smoke and sparkles before he could do so. Tony floats away a little from where the portal was just at. He mumbled a soft Fuck under his breath as he began considering his options. He had an infinity stone under his care for today, and he just so graciously lost him. Not good.

“JARVIS?” He calls, and as expected, the AI already has coordinates on where to find Space based on the energy signature he gives off. And thus, he blasts off – though hearing JARVIS also announce that there’s a sudden energy spark definitely didn’t give Tony a minor heart attack or anything. It meant Space was using his powers again, and considering the capabilities of this guy, Tony is already dreading the chaos he’ll witness when he finds him. 

As it turns out, Space had landed himself in Central Park, watching people go about their day, kids running around – playing with their friends, some couples having picnics, people jogging around or walking their pets. Space would love to just make one massive portal and vacuum up all these wholesome people, so he could help populate their world instead, but the stupid Tony side of his brain told him that’s absolutely horrible and he’d be the scum of the Earth if he did that, and thus, he grumbly decided against it, cursing himself and the confusing pacifist thoughts in his head that isn’t even his. 

As he explored the place, he had found interest in an elderly man, having a stroll around the park, as his pet chihuahua scampers about. “Don’t go too far, Flippy!” The old man called out to his dog, knowing to himself there’s no way in hell he’ll be able to catch up to his hyperactive pupper.

Flippy. Space gasps as he snaps his fingers. “Of course!” He thinks out loud. According to Tony’s memories, he’s found out that this dog happened to be a national icon at this point. This stupidly cute chihuahua has been on national news for the randomest reasons. For some reason, the headline of Flippy finally finding his favourite tennis ball after losing it is something that makes the whole city really happy and boosts DBN’s ratings through the roof. 

They’d definitely need a Flippy in their world. Space doesn’t even care if his Avengers get mad. He’s getting that damn dog and keeping it. Albeit before he could scurry over to observe the dog further, a bunch of children had surrounded Space.

“Cool, it’s Iron Man!” A boy excitedly calls out. 

“Wait… I’m not–” But before Space could awkwardly explain himself, crowds of tiny fans had already surrounded him, holding onto him, climbing up his armoured arm, asking about his supposedly ‘new armour’ and this and that. 

Space didn’t know he would feel so horrified by small humans. He’s lived since the dawn of time, he’s gained consciousness a couple of months ago, he’s fought many battles, and yet, his worst weakness is children, apparently.  His first instinct was to attack them. Just throw the kid clinging onto him across the entire park and maybe blast her out of the planet. Yeah, that’d easily take care of her! He’ll just send the other kids surrounding him into a black hole, never to be seen ever again. Wait, no, Tony would kill him if he did that . 

“Ah, stupid Stark and these stupid thoughts…” He groaned under his breath as he tried to slowly make his exit, and yet, the children continued following him, asking for autographs, to play with him, random questions about being a badass superhero. 

That was, however, the real Iron Man finally came. Space looked up to him, and even though his faceplate was down, Space could already imagine Tony smirking behind it. “If you even dare think of laughing, I will throw you into the sun.” He snarled.

And yet, Tony couldn’t help but laugh at him and his predicament anyway, which earned an eye roll and a frustrated groan from Space. The children, meanwhile, had grown confused now that there were two of them. Tony stepped in, “Don’t worry, kids, this is just my, um… Cousin. Yep. C’mon Morgan, we need to go do something really important , remember?”

Space blinked in confusion before he remembered who this Morgan is. “Ah, yes… Important casino things and plotting my family members’ demise.” He answered awkwardly in a rather stiff manner.

Tony elbowed him almost aggressively, as if to hint that he’s giving too much away. “...Yep,” He replied anyway, bidding farewell to the kids, promising that he’ll come back to play with them and sign autographs at a later date before grabbing Space’s wrist and flying him away. 

After they’ve flown out of the park and far away from public view, Tony immediately asks, “You didn’t hurt anybody, did you?”

Well, Space was debating on it. “Of course not, Stark. What do you think of me? A brute?” He scoffed, earning an eye roll from Tony as he was half–expecting for Central Park to be in flames when he arrived. Albeit he’s still glad that that wasn’t the case and the only problem was Space being harassed by young fans. 

“Yeah, well, it’s not fun that you just run off like that.” 

“I am perfectly capable of existing on my own, thank you very much,” Space huffed as he pulled away from Tony now that they were high enough. “Besides, haven’t I told you that you’ve already served your purpose? Your tour is a bore, and I was perfectly fine down there.” 

Tony stared at him, silently judging, with the stoic expression of the faceplate boring into Space. 

“Okay, maybe I’ve run into some trouble, but it’s not my fault these children are such nuisances,” He huffed, crossing his arms across his chest. “I was simply trying to observe the people and these little monsters so violently attacked me. It was utterly traumatizing.” 

“...Right.” Tony drawled, already done with his bullshit. 

“Whatever, Stark...” Space scoffed in return, earning a tired sigh from Tony. “What were you doing down there anyway?” 

“Exploring and gathering references, as I’ve told you earlier,” Space answered, “There’s some interesting individuals I think would look great in our world.”

“What?!” Tony gasped, “You can’t just pick people off the ground and put them in your dollhouse!”

“We’ll be nice to them, we promise! We’ll house the humans, make food appear every now and then, and other amenities too to keep them entertained, like the park down there.”

Tony fought back the desperate urge to facepalm and loudly groan in utter frustration. It didn’t help that the bad thoughts of what if Space already sent people to their world before he came had managed to slip into his head. 

“I like that dog specifically,” Space continued, however, “His name was Flippy, right?”

“Yeah, he’s always been on the news, everybody loves him; last week, it was reported he turned five this year and he got some baked chicken as a birthday gift,” Tony answers, to which Space nods to, listening intently. “Interesting,” He comments, “I want one.”

“Want what? Flippy?...”

“Yes. The dog. He will bring great joy to all of us back at home.”

Tony stifled a small snort. “Space, you can’t just kidnap someone’s dog, especially not Flippy. People would lose their mind if something happened to him.”

“But I want one. He’s cute and happy, and… Cute.”

“Space, no.”

“Space, yes.”

“No!” 

And there goes Space huffing as he looks away from Tony after he was rejected of the dog. Gosh, is this how frustrated Pepper feels whenever Tony spontaneously decides to hyperfixate on something stupid and waste his money on it? Tony absolutely hates the feeling.

Tony heaved a small sigh, “Okay, y’know, what? How about we get a different dog instead–”

“–But Flippy.”

“We’ll get you another chihuahua, how about that?” 

Space somehow miraculously agreed, but then another problem occurred as the two flew in the air, supposedly to a nearby rescue shelter. Tony realized it’d be odd if there were two Iron Men in the place, and he frankly was running out of the energy to explain to civilians and to make sure Space didn’t cause any trouble inside, especially something that would disturb the animals, and thus, he’s decided to leave him at the roof of a donut shop, buying him about 2–3 boxes he can enjoy while he waited for his new pet. It would be less chaotic that way… Well, at least that was what Tony hoped for.  

It took an hour or two to get from to finish up at the shelter and then back to the rooftop. Thankfully, Space was still there, staring out into the horizon at the arriving sunset as he munched on another chocolate-drizzled donut. “Took you long enough,” He huffed. “Where’s my dog?”

Tony landed beside him and sat beside him on the ledge with the boxes of donuts in between them. “Right here,” He says, pushing out his arms to show the dark brown–coloured puppy in his warm grasp who excitedly barked in Space’s face. Space stared at the puppy’s face. He  hadn’t said a thing but the way the stars in his eyes twinkled already gave away that he was more than happy and excited inside even if his blank–looking face stated otherwise. He took the puppy into his arms. “He looks very cute. Much cuter than Flippy.” 

Tony couldn’t help but grin at the adorable sight. He hadn’t thought he’d be so happy for an infinity stone manifested in his spitting image that he’s now kind of babysitting. Space, meanwhile, cuddled the small chihuahua with a grin on his face and the stars sparkling brighter within his beautiful eyes. 

“What’re you gonna name him?” Tony speaks up, which almost catches Space off guard and had him thinking. He looked around his surroundings before settling on the half—empty box of donuts in between them. “Donut,” He says proudly.

“Donut?” Tony snorted, causing Space to huff and retort, “It’s my dog, Stark.” 

Silence befell the two of them as Space continued looking at his new puppy, and Tony couldn’t help but watch the astonishment and love written all over his face with the bright sparkle in his eyes. “You have to take care of him, y’know,” Tony reminded, to which Space answered with a somber “I know,” though his tone sounded rather haphazard and he was still focused on holding and looking at his dog. After a brief moment, he spoke up, “It’s strange, isn’t it?” 

“What is?”

“How this little guy has probably already had a life before me. You got him from the shelter, yes? That means he used to be someone else’s dog. And he had memories of living with someone else, being fed by someone else, cared for and loved by someone else…He must be feeling confused.”

Tony blinked, a little confused, “He looks pretty happy to me. Probably happy that he has a new owner.”

“Well, yes, but…” Space fell silent again, frowning before shaking his head with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I was deflecting.”

“No, it’s alright… Um, you could talk about your feelings if you want.” Gosh, this was so weird for Tony. He doesn’t know how they got to this point, but he didn’t want to sound like an asshole and shrug away Space’s problems. He’s not a feelsy guy and yet here they are – sitting on the ledge of a rooftop, eating donuts, watching the sunset, and apparently, talking about feelings now.

Space felt hesitant at first, but continued on anyway, “This person. This form. It’s not me, it’s you, and yet… It’s me now,” He mumbled awkwardly, finding it hard to string the complex whirlwind of thoughts swirling in his head, “I’m sure you’re aware now about the story of us taking your forms. When you called out on me of how I can’t commit certain acts because my morals are aligned with yours, it made me think just how strange my life is. I know you, Anthony. I saw how you were born, I saw Howard and Maria, I saw you growing up, I saw the start of the Avengers… I remember all of it as if I’ve lived through it, but I’ve never been there! I didn’t even know who the hell you were until a couple of months ago, then suddenly, boom, it’s as if the universe had slapped me in the face with a gazillion memories – both good and bad – and forced me to call it my own. It’s not me, but it is me. It’s strange, scary, and confusing…” He sighed, “I have these thoughts that I think about that are my own, but then another part of my mind pulls me back from entertaining said thoughts. It’s as if your conscious thoughts are clashing with mine…” 

Then the silence came back as Space put the puppy on his lap, gently stroking it as it made itself comfortable. 

Suddenly, Space whipped his head to Tony, feeling rather abashed by having said all of those things and his odd quietness. “Did… Any of that even make sense?”

If Tony was going to be honest, this was some kind of philosophical Berkeley shit he wasn’t exactly expecting nor was he prepared for.  

“I, um… Yeah,” Tony mumbled. Tony hadn’t really thought about it, but Space was in quite the predicament; technically, the infinity stones have been said to be as the universe itself, but here’s the living manifestation of one of them, fumbling around, confused of how to barely exist and already having an existential crisis after growing sentience a few months ago. He was older than the Earth, and yet he’s taking his baby steps right now, in a foreign body, in a foreign world, in a foreign way of life.  And Tony knowing himself, he had the urge to apologize for already fucking up Space’s life before it even started. He was just born a few months ago and he already has enough trauma and self–loathing to last him a lifetime. 

However, in Tony’s problem whereas he seemed to have been rendered speechless, something click in his mind, and a certain someone’s words came to him all of a sudden. “Y’know,” He started, “I was kind of in the same horrible headspace of feeling so confused and, like, the world’s just viciously thrown you out of the nest and didn’t even give you the wings to fly, but I had this good friend who helped me, caught me before I fully went splat on the ground. You wanna know what he said?”

“...What?”

“He said that in the vast multiverse of infinite possibilities, in a crazy world where there’s hundreds, thousands, millions , of people just like us, we’re all still special in our own way. There’s only one of you, and there’s only one of me.”

Space scoffed, “Sounds rather cliche, don’t you think?”

Tony couldn’t help but roll his eyes and grin a little, “Yeah, but you agree with it, don’t you? Since you’re me, I know you just have to agree.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever…” Space groaned.

“Seriously, think about it though. How many other versions of you that probably exists in the multiverse actually manifested into me? All of those other space stones? Probably still colourful rocks. But you? You’re living your best life – making this big and beautiful world with your Avengers just the way you want it. Not to mention, you picked the right guy to copy, aside from your bitchiness, you’ve got the looks, the smarts. Hell, you’ve got a dog. How many others out there have all that, huh?”

Space hated how he ended up smiling and how Tony’s words almost instantly lifted his mood. “Probably not a lot… Maybe just only one.”

“Yeah, see? That’s something special, right?” 

“I suppose so...” Space replied, looking back at Tony with a soft smile, “Thank you, Stark.”

Tony looked back at him with a smile of his own, feeling oddly happy to have somehow helped him in some way, trying his best not to keep staring at those beautiful sparkling eyes with all the stars and– “Yeah, no problem.”

A few more months had passed since then, surprisingly with no more interruptions. 

Tony had grown to like Space, and after their initial day together, he offered for him to come back and visit again sometime, suggesting to bring the rest of the Avengers next, so the others could see how their counterparts are doing, and wished them well on building their perfect home. 

However, Space hasn't actually come back at all nor did any of the other Infinity Avengers. In the meantime, Tony’s life had fallen back into routine, beating up bad guys, bonding with his team, and as always, like every day, retreating back to the lab for some much needed me time after everything was said and done. 

Today, Tony was working hard as usual. He thought of a new project a couple weeks ago to busy himself with, and he’s been constantly working on it whenever he can. As of the moment, he was soldering some parts with a blow torch, deeply focused as he always is when he gets into the zone. But suddenly, some odd sounds echoed from behind him. He quickly turned off the blowtorch and turned up as he pulled up his welding mask. To his surprise, he was greeted with the sight of a small portal appearing with familiar purple dust emitting from it. But instead of Space, photographs emerged instead as they all fell to the floor one by one after being puked out by the portal. 

Intrigued, Tony put the blow torch away on his work desk and ambled over to crouch down and inspect the photographs. They were from Space. Each photograph was donned with a small note. Like the first one being ‘I learned what interdimensional photography is. Isn’t that cool?’ Tony couldn’t help but laugh at some of the photos and descriptions such as photos of the Infinity Avengers being chaotic has a description that simply said ‘They’re stupid, and I hate them Stark. This is a SOS message. Please take me away from this hell.’ Sometimes it’s a pile of photos of Donut and lots of variations of Space expressing how much he loves his dog and how he’ll be the most important being of their entire dimension,  or a small, shrunken island apparently being put right in the middle of Central Park and a comment that says ‘Is that normal? Thor says it isn’t, but Hulk says it is. Widow is confused, so am I, and Cap, and expect another visit from me soon because I’ve been sacrificed to check again.’

Tony sighed at that last one. As much as he’s happy to hear from Space and hear the announcement that he might come back, but let’s be honest, Space will just come whenever he likes and ruin Tony’s day again. 

He’s still looking forward to it though.