Chapter Text
The world stopped, if only for moment, when Tony Stark left, all eyes, all cameras following that flying doughnut into the sky.
It stops again when he comes back.
It’s something to behold, it really is, and cameras do not truly capture the pure, unworldly beauty of it.
They burst through the atmosphere, streaking across the sky like shooting stars. There are dozens and dozens of ships. Big and small, personal crafts and huge battleships from all corners of the universe, indicated in flags, in alien words and symbols painted along the sides. In the center of it all the Milano, a bit dinged up and somewhat worse for wear, but with a replaced wing, tech obviously upgraded and replaced.
The ships stop at the place it all began, New York. People point and scream, clutching children close to them while the government gears up for a fight. But the ships do not engage, only hover there, impassive and watching.
Then, one by one, they leave, speeding off towards the stars. There is no warning, no purpose, just a strange, intuitive system with no seen signals.
One of the last to leave, a Death-Star sized warship releases something like fireworks. What’s left of SHIELD is ready to fire, but something stops them — curiosity, perhaps? More of the remaining ships shoot the Colors as well, until the sky is covered with sparkling, blooming fireworks like flowers. Once the crackling explosives fade the smaller ships disappear along with the larger one.
They have heard of the Ravagers from Rocket, they have heard of the Colors, but it is not the same second-hand. This is so much more vivid, so much more...other-worldly. It's a funeral rite. Who has died, who are they honouring?
(Tony Stark himself, they learn. They are honouring him, all that he has done, all the pain he has gone though, the people he has changed and the places he has been, he in a way has died and been reborn. They are honouring the end of his old life and the start of a new one.)
The rest of the vessels bob, seemingly in recognition or goodbye, leaving quickly after that. One skips towards the Milano, sniffing goodbye like a puppy. Satellites and drones capture hands pressed against the windshield of each, one undoubtedly humanoid, and the other more like a tentacle, green and purple.
Then it's just the garishly striped orange-and-blue Milano, still with it's design and paint job, hovering above the New York harbour. Just as they are ready with the megaphone, about to demand what they are doing here, the little ship zooms up to the city.
It lands by the docks, the door sliding open and a ramp extending without prompt. The police, FBI, CIA, every government agency known to man and quite a few not, gather around, ready with assault rifles and soldiers in battle gear. With them is Rocket, trembling with excitement and trepidation.
The press is there too, no matter how much shooing the government does, journalists are stubborn little things and buzzing around the scoop like flies to a carcass. The government is more concerned with the ship than a few wannabe-reporters, but they still shoo a few away.
When the doors open Rocket jumps forward, only to be pulled back by a nameless agent.
There’s a few moments without any movement, and then someone is stepping out. Her gait is unusual, graceful, loping but with a cutthroat edge, clunky and robotic that slows her down. She’s vaguely humanoid in shape and design, pieces of blue and purple metal slotted together to make up her body. One eye rotates in it's socket, a big black iris fringed with long eyelashes like a deer's blinking out at them.
She grins, slow and almost savage, and Rocket leans forward, “I know her!” he yells, voice gruff with emotion — of what type, not sure.
Nebula sees him and smiles again, this time smaller and sombre, more of a funeral smile than a reunion one, as if she's sorry for something. Rocket doesn't notice, fully expecting his teammates to saunter out behind her.
Nebula laughs, high and slightly mechanical. “You can come out now, Stark,” she calls, looking back into the depths of the ship. The soldiers stiffen, Stark? He’s dead, he has to be… it's been so long with no contact... he can't be alive....right?
But a laugh bleeds out from the interior, known from so many press conferences and interviews and shouted comments on the street that it’s unable to be unrecognisable.
And he comes, walking off the ramp with that smile on his face and favouring his right side. “I wanted to make a big entrance,” he pouts petulantly, acting the same as ever, but there's something...alien in his tone, something not entirely earth-like. It’s muddled his classic New York accent, twisted it into something that should be familiar, but isn't.
She motions towards the jaw-dropped soldiers, to the paparazzi snapping shots once they get over their surprise, “I think you did.”
He smiles again, this time slightly wobbly and nervous — like he can’t quite believe it, and they take in his appearance.
He’s not wearing his signature suit, not at all. Instead combat boots that look to be made out of a scaly, reptilian hide, a long red trench coat — one that Rocket seems to be eyeing suspiciously, and with such a degree of knowing that the agents will surely question him later — and a thick gold belt strung with various tools and weapons so gaudy it has to be a joke of some sort.
“Hey, guys,” Tony says raspily, eyes sharp and guarded, unsure in some way. "Been a while, hasn't it?" he says, no-one answers him, only gape at the man they all thought dead.
Rocket pushes forward, even when hands pull him back. “Where is my crew?” he asks, voice so close to breaking.
Tony cocks his head, looking back at the robot-girl, who nods once, “I’m sorry.” That's all he says, all he needs to say, because Rocket is on the ground, clear understanding in his mind, and rough sobs pushing their way through his throat.
“Tony!” the cry is sharp and needy, like broken glass, and Stark snaps to attention. A red-head is pushing her way through the crowd, face obscured by shifting bodies as they let her pass.
She falters once she’s free, teary face unbelieving.
“Pep..?” Tony says, stumbling a step forward. That’s all she needs, and then she’s launched herself towards him, arms wrapping around his neck.
“I told you to come home,” is all that she manages, and then she’s crying, head buried into his shoulder where her sobs are muffled but still loud.
“I know, Pep. I’m sorry,” he whispers against her head, one hand twisting in the back of her shirt and the other holding her hair with a hand scarred from worlds and battles a solar system away.
Nebula steps towards Tony in a protective gesture, hand going to the gun at held at her belt. It’s not towards Pepper, but some well-honed battle reflex. Half of the army raises their guns at her, the other half doesn't even notice.
She snarls at them, but is interrupted by Tony, now separated from Pepper, “Neb,” he warns, “don’t.” She only nods in response.
With a flick of her eyes demanding more than asking, she walks towards Rocket, alone and inconsolable on the ground. When she touches his arm his jumps back. He relaxes only slightly seeing her familiar face. She circles her arms around him, whispering something in his ear.
Tony stands, slightly uncomfortable, taking in the city air, looking like a foreigner on his own home planet.
He is a man that has travelled to a thousand worlds and never looked back. A man who has seen everything and more and never blinked. A man who has heard many languages and spoken them all. A man who has danced in as many festivals as stars litter the sky then prayed to every one of them. A man who has been to a thousand civilisations and taken something from each culture.
A man who has not forgotten, Oh no, he has remembered.
He has remembered a gawky, awkward 15 year old, with terrible jokes and science T-shirts.
(He remembers him dissolve under his fingertips, ‘I don’t want to go, Mr. Stark. I don’t want to go’)
He has remembered sleepless nights designing new leg braces and wheelchairs and crutches for Rhodey, plagued with guilt every time he even thinks about sleep.
(He remembers him falling, blasted out of the sky by his adopted family. His fault. His fault. His fault.)
He has remembered Pepper, true to her name with a fiery temper that will burn you if you cross her. He remembers her smiles, her kisses, that wry twist of her lips when he’s being well….him.
(He remembers her frantic call, come back here, Tony!)
He has remembered JARVIS, one of his first real family after Rhodey and the real Edwin Jarvis. The thought of the butler stings, so he pushes it away fast.
(He remembers trying to make him better, but instead destroying him. You just had to mess it up, didn’t you?)
He has remembered his other hand-made family, DUM-E and U. His lovable, stupid, horrible-at-their-jobs, bots that will never be thrown out, no matter how obsolete they are.
(I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll teach you how to make proper smoothies next time.)
He has remembered Happy, rolling his eyes, and making annoyed phone calls about Pe— no, don’t say his name. He remembers stopping at burger joints and greasy pizza places, eating together in the middle of the night, only a few skittish witnesses and each other as company.
(Oh, he would give a lot to be back in those moments, the surreal, empty feeling of all-night diners, only the occasional car zooming past on the empty highway outside.)
He remembers the life he left behind.
He remembers, but he did not want to go back. (Until now)
He did not want to know if they survived the snap.
He did not want to face the press, the media, Christine Everhart shoving a microphone in his face and demanding answers he doesn't have.
He did not want to come back without him, have to explain to his aunt, have to tell the journalists why Spider-Man went up but never came down.
He is afraid. He is cowardly. But, he is strong. He has fought and died and lived and cried in his time in the stars. He is known, the genius who can make anything work, the uniter who can take lone wolves and pariahs and win a war with them, the fighter, who will do anything for friends and allies.
It is custom in most places to tell the story of your life. Tony Stark does, and his tales spread though the universe like water, gurgling down canals and trickling down streams. Soon he becomes an urban legend, present in bedtime stories and the history books, stories recited over shady poker games in seedy underworlds.
He is not Tony Stark, not anymore.
He is someone — some thing much more.
He is not Tony Stark: ‘genius billionaire playboy philanthropist'. He is Tony Stark: ‘inventor, ravager, traveller, god.’
And every place he's been, he leaves with backing, with another group, another person ready to fight for him. They echo with every step, battle cries and pledges, the sharpening of knives and swords, the low rumble of engines firing up.
This Tony Stark is loved by the galaxy more than earth has ever loved him, his second home treats him better than his first. Funny.
This man is not the same. Not for the better, or the worse, but perhaps for the stronger.
He is different and he knows it. They know it.
But does Thanos?