The End of it All

TONY'S JOURNEY

"Mr Stark, I don't feel so good,"

"You're alright." Tony assures the boy. Peter glances at his hands as they start to disintegrate, dust drifting into the winds of Titan.

"I don't ... I don't know what's happening." Tony couldn't find the words to comfort Peter as he stumbled forward into Tony's arms.

"I don't want to go." That sentence broke Tony's heart.

"I don't want to go, sir." He knew that Peter should have been home in Queens, safe and away from the dangers of the war, with his aunt, but he had found himself protecting the teen from the mad titan, though all in vain, for Thanos had won. He had succeeded in obtaining the stones and ridding the universe of half its population. Peter was one of the unlucky ones, it would seem.

"Please." Peter sobbed into Tony's shoulder, holding him as if he were the only thing that could make the feeling go away.

"Please, I don't want to go." They dropped to the ground as Tony placed the teen down in the dirt, Peter still clinging to his arm.

"I don't want to go." Peter glanced at his mentor, hoping for something, anything really, but whatever it was, it never came.

"I'm sorry."

~ ♢ ~ ♢ ~ ♢ ~ ♢ ~ ♢ ~ Time Jump ~ ♢ ~ ♢ ~ ♢ ~ ♢ ~ ♢ ~

'I'm sorry.' Peters last words had followed Tony for the past 5 years. They had haunted him like a ghost, incessant and belligerent. Tony regretted not saying anything in those final moments, but he knew if he had he would have broken down, balled up and shut Peter out, abandoning him like he felt his own father had, for he had failed his single most important challenge he had set himself, to protect Peter. Since meeting the boy he had taken him under his wing, improving Peter suits, teaching how to better utilise his skills, trying to be the father that Peter didn't have, that his own father never was to him.

In those following days on Titan after the Snap, Nebula had tried her best to console Tony, to make him forget his grief for long enough to get them back to Earth, but it had been a tiring task. It had Tony 3 weeks to come up with a form of transport that could be built from scavenged parts on the forsaken planet, and a further 2 months for them to actually bring that blueprint to life. They bonded over their 'daddy issues' and their constant struggles to prove themselves as equals to others. The journey back to Earth was troublesome for the most part, as they hadn't been able to scavenge or replicate the navigation systems of the ships that lay waste on Titan, so were relying on Tony's memory of the journey there.

It took longer than they had initially hoped for but they made it, and faced the mass devastation the Snap had taken on the planet. Buildings craned over, burnt out cars scattered down the roads and streets empty spare the few clean up crews and government workers trying desperately to help get the world back to some sort of normality.

Tony had spent the journey back growing more and more anxious as to the welfare and whereabouts of his fellow fighters. Steve, Nat; as far as he had known, they had been fighting undercover since the Civil War as, technically, after helping Barnes evade the authorities, they were war criminals. Cap and Tony hadn't exactly been on speaking terms since their falling out, though every so often he felt himself tempted to contact him and make amends, of course his pride got in the way of that every time. Bruce; Tony had left him on the streets of New York after tailing Peter on the ship headed back to space, but he knew that Bruce would have found himself some way to get involved in the fight, even if his 'partner' wasn't too keen on it. And Thor; Tony hadn't seen him since Sokovia, in the battle against Ultron.  He had seemed in bright spirits when he left the facility for Asgard, but Tony knew that Wanda's vision had taken a toll on him.

Once safe back on Earth, Nebula and Tony parted ways, to find their own sort of slivers of hope for what the future might hold for their friends. Tony had reluctantly made his way back to the likely abandoned facility upstate, only to find his allies, tired and beaten, gathered and arguing around the table. The faces he had pictured on Titan, the ones that had kept him sane; Cap, Pepper, Clint, Natasha, Rhodey, Bruce, plus a few strangers. That moment, he would hold onto that moment forever, as after losing Peter and being engulfed by feeling of having nothing left to live for, he found a last shred of happiness in his companions faces seeing him standing in that doorway. For a brief, fleeting instant they had the chance to push the horrors and raging emotions of the war to the back of their minds and just cherish the company of one another and the relief that came with knowing that they were safe.

The feeling of euphoria as he was enveloped in his friends arms was short lived though, as they were all brought heavy heartedly back to reality and the thought of the struggles they would face in attempting to find some sort of way to reverse the effects of the Snap, to bring everyone back. Steve had lost Bucky, his closest friend and trusted partner in espionage; Thor had lost Loki, his arduous but beloved brother and Clint had lost his family, there were casualties and reasons for vengeance on all sides. They had lost too much.

The only thing that kept the group going was the possibility of seeing their loved ones again, after it all. They spent every waking hour devising plans and and sketches of tech that might help them bring back the ones they lost, but it was never quite enough, it seemed, and they never could find the flaws in their designs. They knew of at least one way, to turn back time and jump back to before the war, but that option lay in the hands of Thanos still, and they had no idea as to where he was, added with the factor that he likely still possessed all 6 Stones, meaning that there was no way they would succeed in getting the Time Stone. Bruce had pondered on the thought of time travel through the Quantum Realm, but neither Tony nor Bruce knew enough about the voids and wormholes to come up with a bombproof plan, there would be too much at risk for an attempt, and the only person they knew had enough knowledge on Quantum space had supposedly vanished in the Snap.

Or had he?

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AN: Hope you enjoyed the first chapter!  Currently working on the next one, will hopefully be up in the next couple of weeks, can't promise anything though cos EXAMS ARE COMING :'(

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