Avengers Stories //Oneshots//

One Man. Six Stones.

"I am Ironman."

He snapped his fingers and his whole world went white, his ears buzzing like the static of an old television as he felt the sheer power of the six infinity stones course through his entire being. He had felt the power before, a deep pain that moved through his skin and bones slowly as it crawled up his right side and toward his neck, but the snap put it into an overdrive that flooded his senses with both pain and knowledge. So much of both that he never thoughf he would be able to comprehend, and yet here he was. The universe was at his literal fingertips. There was so much he could do, so much he could correct within the fabric of time and space. World hunger, natural disasters, death itself... there was so much he could reverse if he just pulled the power of one stone and the abilities of all six combined was unimaginable.

Tony could do so much with the power, everything he ever dreamed of, but he was limited by his body. He could feel himself burning like a flame, the power around him unable to be held back by his nanites as it crashed down on his physical form with all it had, trying to tear him apart from the inside out. Something told him he could only do one thing, and he had to act fast before his body overrided his brain. Was his heart even beating anymore? It felt like everything had stopped with the whiteness that covered the area around him. He was just on the battle field. He had just seen Peter. Pepper had been by his side only minutes ago and he'd watched Rhodey bash through ten chitauri not long before. Where did everyone go? Where did he go? Was he still on his knees or was he standing? Was this truly happening or would he wake up to Morgan jumping on his and Pepper's bed, too joyful for the morning as she called for his famous blueberry pancakes?

A burning pain moved through his very core and he knew that this wasn't just a nightmare like the ones he'd had since he crawled out of that cave in Afghanistan a million years ago, a burning suit of armor connected to something that acted as his heart as he plummeted toward the sand dunes in a stunt no one should have survived. He shouldn't have made it. Yinsen should have made it. But Tony was the one here while he was not. The doctor had been the only one to believe in him, but had his sacrifice really been worth it or had he caused more harm than good? He had lived for a reason, he had always believed that, but was it a good enough reason?

Two more pains shot through him, hitting him in the heart as realization dawned on him. This was the reason. This is what his life had built up to. This was the last wire that held him to the world that he had loved so much, but never received love back. All those times he had almost died, all those times he was supposed to die, had lead up to this very moment where he had to make the choice for all life itself. Thanos had made a choice five years ago and it decimated half the universe's population, forcing them to rebuild with no hope to bring back the lives lost. Less than forty-eight hours ago, they had received that hope and he had been so hesitant to believe it. Would if he hadn't come? Would if he had stayed home?

'Then nothing would have changed,' a voice in his mind said. Six voices. Six different tones all wrapped into one. His intelligent brown eyes moved to where his hand should be and for a brief, fleeting second, he saw the gauntlet. Burning bright, all stones lit up almost blindingly as the destroyed area around him came into focus in his peripheral. Everything was moving slowly, Thanos's face frozen in shock. The only one in his line of sight was Peter, mouth open and staring at him with such horror filled eyes that a knife went through his heart and twisted. He never understood why the teen had cared so much about him, or why Tony had cared so much about a spiderling who got in over his head way too much, he just knew he viewed him as a son and would have done anything to get him back as long as Morgan was safe, too. 'Without you, he wouldn't be here. Without you, no one would be here.'

He took a breath of air that he couldn't feel and the world returned to white again, but this time he wasn't so uncertain. Three pains went through his body, like a final bell, a final warning that he was running out of time. Tony pushed the air out through his nose and focused on his body and the energy going through him. His fingertips were pressed together, the sounds of a snap beginning to break through the static that filled his eardrums as reality came back into focus once more. He could only do one thing, and he knew what that thing had to be, even if it killed him. This was the one time he couldn't swerve death. His final song. His last act.