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“It’s the only way to fully fix this.”
Valkyrie threw up her hands. “You’re going to fuck up the whole universe to fix your personal lives? Have at it. I do not sign off on it.”
Carol blew her bangs out of her eyes and peered directly at Tony. “You sure you can do this.” It wasn’t a question, it was a test.
“Yes.”
No jokes, no quips, no prevaricating. Tony met her eyes and spoke firmly.
“Do it.” Carol rose, cracked her neck from side to side, and moved towards the door. “Send whatever coordinates I need to be at and when, and I'll do my part.”
“What do you want to do?” Steve asked Nat quietly.
The room was pregnant with her silence. She fiddled with the strings on her hoodie for several minutes before she spoke. “What clears my ledger, Stark?”
That should have been the question Steve was prepared for her to ask, but it wasn’t. His eyes cut to Tony, whose face had a tender expression on his face.
“Natalie, you did that long ago.”
“Not my name,” she said with a small smirk on his face. “And I haven’t. Not even close.”
“Come with us,” Tony said. “If it’s the six of us, it resets it. Barton will only come if you do.”
Her eyes cut to Bruce. “You can get Thor?”
Bruce nodded. “We…we all miss the way it was.”
“This time, I want Clint’s room,” was her only reply.
Tony’s face cracked open into a wide grin. “FRIDAY, girl, you ready?”
“To write myself out of existence? Can’t wait, boss.”
Steve snorted before he could stop himself.
“Buck was the one into the future, you know,” Steve said a few nights later. “He was the one who dragged me to the Stark Expo.”
Tony chuckled. “You did tell me that, I think. Or it’s in a history book. One of the two. Maybe both.”
Steve was quiet long enough that Tony turned from the TV to look at him. “Capsicle?”
“I’m used to knowing things other people don’t,” Steve remarked. “All these years, I’ve carried the truths and smells and realities of things no one else alive knew anything about.”
“Except Bucky,” Tony interjected, and saw the sad smile turn Steve’s mouth up at the corners.
“Eventually, yes, but not really. He was so desperate for a fresh life, so so desperate. We’d talk about the old neighborhood, and he’d be in the conversation, but not fully in it. So no. Not really. But my point is that I’m used to carrying secrets, but this one…this is…if this works…”
“It’ll work,” Tony said, making sure there was finality in his tone. “It will work. We know when we have to go back to, we know what we have to do instead, we know. My data is never wrong.”
Steve made a face.
“Okay, my data double checked by Bruce, and run through several alien tech analyzers that Carol sourced for us is never wrong. Happy?”
“Utterly delighted,” Steve replied. He flopped his head back onto the couch cushion. “He’s who I wonder about the most. I have ideas how other folks are going to react, and how they’ll be different. He’s the wildcard.”
They’d had this conversation three or four times since Tony had first proposed this waypoint to jump back to. Originally the idea was to get there right before the snap, but that didn’t give them enough time to prevent anything. Strange warned them about how many universes they’d create by jumping back in the first place, much less jumping to anywhere specific for the purpose of changing the trajectory. He maintained there was only one way Thanos wouldn’t destroy the universe and that their current plan wasn’t that one way.
Tony refused to believe him, mostly because he had a feeling what that one way was.
And if everything they tried didn’t prevent that moment from coming, he’d make the sacrifice play. He would. He was prepared. But he had to try and see if this other plan would work first.
“Pep will know something is off,” Tony remarked, a point he’d brought up before. “Probably Rhodey, too.”
“Probably everyone who knew us before,” Steve said. “None of us are Oscar winners.”
Tony laughed. “No, no we’re not. I’ll tell Pep something, just not the whole thing. I need to make sure we don’t follow through on that stupid pact, and I’m sure I’ll have to tip my proverbial hand to do it.”
“What do you hope for her instead?”
Tony paused. “I…I just want her to be happy. I don’t think I ever made her happy.”
“Tony–”
“No, I’m serious. I made her content, I helped her live her life, but you weren’t there at the end of things. And I don’t think I ever made her happy.”
After Steve left and before the Snap, Pepper and Tony had tumbled into a life together. Acting on a “if we’re not married by the time we’re ___” pact they made in their late 20s, they’d gotten married in a lavish society wedding that Tony had hoped would distract the public from the disappearance of Captain America.
In terms of that goal, it worked. In terms of a marriage, it worked for a while. But things kept tapping on the bricks they’d built their life with – infertility was a big whack, a failed product line was a little one, and so on. By the time Tony headed into space with Nebula to try to prevent unmitigated disaster, his personal life already was one.
“What do you want for everyone?” Tony asked.
Steve’s smile was pained, which Tony knew meant he was thinking of Bucky. “You mean what do I want for Bucky.”
“No, I do really mean everyone,” Tony responded. “We’ve talked about Buckaroo. A lot.”
If they were both honest, this whole plot was for two people: Bucky and Peter. There was unfinished business there for each of them, words that needed to be said, dreams that needed to come true. Iron Man and Captain America knew that the universe needed to be saved, and rips needed to be mended.
Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, personally, had to speak to James Barnes and Peter Parker as quickly as possible.
“I hope I can give Sam the shield,” Steve confessed.
Tony was surprised. This hadn’t come up before. “You ready to retire? But what nicknames will I use?”
That earned him a throw pillow to the head.
“I am,” Steve affirmed. “I look at the last…what I thought was important…the…” He took a deep breath and started over. “When you asked me to map out that meeting with Zemo in the cave so that we could jump there, I spent a lot of time thinking about what got us there and where we went. I have raked over every moment, and I remember all of them with this fucking eidetic memory your father gave me.”
“Language, Cap,” Tony teased, which earned him a middle finger from Steve.
Tony let out a laugh and reminded himself to never take this kind of moment for granted ever again. To make sure these moments happened all the time. To make sure Zemo didn’t win this time.
“Being the leader that I thought I was would have meant telling you about the tape immediately,” he confessed. “No questions, no worries about protecting you, no fears about Bucky. I would have told you immediately and then we could have had actual conversations about the Accords instead of…”
“Stop,” Tony said. “We were assholes, both of us. Stubborn, recalcitrant assholes who knew we were right.”
“Now we’re stubborn, recalcitrant assholes who have no idea what we’re doing,” Steve supplied.
Tony snorted. “All I’m saying is that we’re rewriting enough history. We shouldn’t rewrite ours, too.”
“Fine,” Steve conceded.
The clock chimed 11pm and both men sighed.
“So,” Tony said slowly.
“So,” Steve replied.
The plan was to essentially hopscotch to four different points in time, and to land for the final time in the cave in Siberia. With everyone’s help, Tony and Steve had painstakingly gone over every moment they could think of since Tony became aware of aliens and their various beefs with Earth. They identified waypoints where the Infinity Stones showed up, and others where an action happened that caused a Stone to fall directly into the wrong hands.
And then also the moments that needed to be fixed that had nothing to do with the Stones.
The assignments were simple but impossible. All six of them were to jump first back to 2012 to redux the Battle of New York. With the big picture and foreknowledge, they figured that Loki would still put up a fight, but it was a fight they could win.
(They were right, that part went great.)
Once they returned, Bruce was to head off to the Ancient One and get the Time Stone, while Tony made more time travel juice (“Not what it’s called!”) with the Tesseract and the Space Stone. After he finished that, he’d send Clint and Natasha to get the Soul Stone.
(That went less great, and required a few more time jumps to make sure everyone was safe. Tony also pulled four all-nighters to make it all work, and Steve slipped right back into his well worn “Care and Feeding of Geniuses” routine.)
The Mind Stone would be easy, as Vision was happy to sacrifice anything that would mean the potential of life.
(Upon hearing Vision’s voice for the last time, Tony took a long walk around the compound. The rest of them made sure he returned to a cheeseburger.)
Carol had to make sure they got the Power Stone from the Guardians, which would only leave the Reality Stone.
“Are you ready to see him again?” Steve said quietly.
“Which one of them?” Tony said, knowing exactly who Steve meant.
Which is why Steve rolled his eyes.
“This could all go fucking pear shaped tomorrow–”
“It won’t,” Steve said firmly. “You just said–”
“I know what I said,” Tony snapped. He took a breath and continued, his tone softer. “I know, but Steve…Steve, this is time travel. I am breaking about nineteen laws of physics and it has to be done, I know that, but…Just listen to me. If it all goes pear shaped, if you survive and I don’t, whenever he sees the video, tell him I forgive him. Tell Peter I’m proud of him, and tell Bucky I forgive him.”
Tony hadn’t been looking at Steve as he spoke, but he turned his head now. With tears in his eyes, Steve responded. “Tell Bucky I’m sorry I couldn't save him, and tell Peter I’m sorry I never got to know him.”
They were both quiet for a moment as an old episode of The Office droned on in the background. Michael Scott was about to drive his car into a pond.
Finally, Tony decided to have five seconds of personal bravery before he had to have about eighty hours of professional bravery. He rose from the couch and felt every single one of his fifty-two years in his creaking bones. It had been eleven years since he’d done what he was about to do, and he felt every one of those in his heart.
He settled directly next to Steve on the couch and wove their fingers together. He took refuge in his calloused hands against Steve’s smooth ones, the way Steve’s skin was always warm without sweating, the way Steve always smelled so much like Ivory Soap that Tony swore it was part of the serum.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I haven’t said that yet. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to be honest all those years ago. I’m sorry for everything. I know you said there was too much water under the bridge and there probably is, and I respect that, but before tomorrow, I need to tell you I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Steve said quietly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough for us to try again.”
“How about this,” Tony said. “How about we circle back to this after we prevent the Purple People Eater from fucking everything up? When we are in our second chance?”
“Circle back? Should we also see if there’s synergy between the TPS reports?” There was a smirk in Steve’s voice.
“First of all, that doesn’t make any sense, and second of all I’m about to have to be a CEO again, I can’t keep exclusively talking about Nat’s hair color choices.”
“The electric blue was certainly a choice,” Steve mused.
“When we do the timey wimey thing, can we make sure you keep talking like someone from this century? We’re going to have enough trouble with Barnes and calling Nat ‘doll.’”
“Aw shucks, mister butter and eggs man, that might be a trip for biscuits.”
“The accent only makes it more ridiculous,” Tony replied with a laugh. “I don’t have any idea what that means.”
“You pay for shit and it might be a thing that won’t happen, basically,” Steve said.
“We don’t give you enough credit for how much you hold in your head,” Tony said sincerely.
Which earned him one of his favorite sights – a blush gracing the tips of Steve’s ears.
“Our fella and the kid,” Tony murmured. “Let’s go bring them home.”
They’d known the stones wouldn’t be enough to reset what needed to be. There were a few specific moments that they needed to tweak, and the whole team had debated over which ones were the most important.
“Even though I hate Doctor Spooky,” Tony said at one point, “we should probably heed his warning that the more we fuck with things, the more things fuck with us. So let’s keep this to a minimum.”
Nat advocated for a fight she’d had with SHIELD once, Clint wanted to erase his bonding time with Loki, and Tony suggested they could do something about the Mandarin. All were vetoed by other members as they weren’t strong enough tipping points.
“We can’t save you from Three Rings, Tony,” Steve pointed out, “because then we don’t get Iron Man and SI doesn’t stop making weapons. That’s too big of a tipping point. So we’re looking for things that will tip us or the war with Thanos, but won’t tip the entire human existence.”
“Siberia,” Tony responded. “Steve and I have to re-do Siberia.”
The rest of the team shifted uncomfortably. Siberia was not a thing they talked about.
“It’s the point of no return,” Tony continued. “We probably also need something with the Maximoffs or Sokovia in general, but the tape and the fight and…Anyway, Siberia. We need to re-do that one.”
“I agree,” Steve said, “but we need to plan about how we’d do it differently.”
Tony barked out a laugh. “Like I haven’t thought about that obsessively for the past ten years. I have some suggestions.”
“You think I didn’t know that?”
Tony was staring Zemo down as though the Sokovian was actual vermin – which, Steve reflected, he kind of was.
“You think that I,” Tony continued, a sneer in his voice, “Anthony Stark, who has more powerful technology in my literal fingers than most nations have, that I wouldn’t know everything possible about how my parents died? That I wouldn’t know it wasn’t an accident, that your silly little HYDRA Nazi knock-off pals are the ones who murdered them? Please, you are pathetic.”
Zemo started to react, snarling something that resembled consonants before T’Challa stepped towards him.
“Mr. Zemo,” the king said gently. “You have no power here, how do you want this to end?”
“I want him to pay,” Zemo pointed at Tony, as though they all hadn’t realized that about ten minutes prior when he’d produced a surveillance video of the Winter Soldier killing the Starks.
“Well, with this stunt, the feeling is mutual, pal,” Tony spat. “T’Challa, you take point here.”
Steve noticed that Bucky had stepped close to his left shoulder, barely touching it. He heard the whisper, “did you tell him?” Steve shook his head nearly imperceptibly.
This was the final tipping point they had to adjust before Carol delivered the solidified Reality Stone back to its rightful place in a galaxy far, far away, and everything locked into place. The last formulation of time jump juice let all of them shift their bodies back to what they were in 2016.
“He’s going to know,” Tony said to Steve, as they both stared at the vials in their hands. “We have to do this because he’s going to know.”
“I know,” Steve said. “He’s good with details.”
“He’s a fucking sniper, Steven,” Tony snorted. “I would hope he’d notice that I was older than the last time he’d seen me.”
“When we get there tomorrow, he’ll think that’ll be two months?”
“Three,” Tony said. “I was with you guys in Copenhagen for that weekend before you headed to Bucharest.”
“You had a board meeting,” Steve remembered. “And then that’s when you met Peter. You were so excited to introduce us.”
“And you were–” Tony cut himself off.
“You are giving us a second chance,” Steve said. “That’s what’s happening now.”
Tony turned the vial over in his hand. “This will either give us back five-ish years of life, or we’ll turn five. Crapshoot.”
“Last time I was five, I was dying with newspaper in my shoes, so a second time around that includes running water in my house honestly wouldn’t be that bad.”
“It’s good to have goals.” Tony tipped the vial back and sealed the future.
As T’Challa dragged Zemo down the hallway towards a waiting Quinjet, Tony spun on his heel to face Steve and Bucky. Steve summoned every inch of his acting skills and spoke.
“Listen, Tony–”
“No, Cap, you listen, I talk,” Tony snapped as he retracted his suit.
Steve felt Bucky inhale and willed the other man to keep silent. Tony had to say the rehearsed dialogue if they had any chance of settling into the stable triad they should have been the first time.
“We’ll just wait for T’Challa and then I’m never coming back to this iced over godforsaken hellhole.”
“Tony,” Steve started.
“Cap, I don’t think you want to push me on this right now. I think you want to let me talk.”
“I just want to know when you found out.”
Tony was quiet for several beats, as though answering Steve’s question would cost him greatly and he was weighing each word. “When Zemo told me.”
“What?”
“Yeah, when did you find out?” Tony snapped his eyes to Steve’s at the same time that Bucky said, “you didn’t fucking tell him?”
All three men heaved breaths for a few minutes, all of them torn between a desperate need to speak and a deep fear of doing so.
“We’re new into this–” Tony gestured between the three of them, “so I wasn’t picking out china patterns or anything, but I don’t think I’m out of line to expect that if you knew the man we’re fucking killed my mother, you’d give me a brief heads up.”
“Tony–”
“Am I wrong?”
Tony terrified Steve far more often than he’d like to admit for a host of reasons, but the main one was that when Tony wanted a piece of information, he’d get it.
“No,” Steve said, making sure to lace his voice with the stubbornness he remembered feeling. “But–”
“Am. I. Wrong.”
“I answered that,” Steve replied, “and I told you that no, you’re not wrong, but you are missing information!”
They’d paced around the compound rehearsing what this scene would be, how they’d transition from the fight to the decision for them all to get to the nearest CIA safe house where they could wait for further transit. There were clear plans, there were rehearsals…
They simply forgot that Bucky was a sentient human and not a memory they had.
“Stevie, are you fucking joking me? You fucking taking the absolute piss right now?” Bucky’s voice started in a low growl and only got louder. “I told you to…I TOLD YOU TO CALL HIM RIGHT AWAY, and you told me not to worry about it, that you knew him better than I did, and that you knew just how to tell him, but he had a board meeting and he’d have to sit in Howard’s chair so you didn’t want him to have to watch me--”
“Not you,” Tony interrupted.
And this was the true point of difference.
This was when it all shifted, when a new reality could dawn, the point from which all the lessons Tony and Steve had learned about the actual importance of family and team in the intervening years – this was when they could put those lessons into practice.
“What the fuck you talking about, Tony?” Bucky was visibly exasperated. “I am on that tape, I know I am, I barely remember it, but I remember some of it, and I was there.”
Tony shook his head. “Answer this. If I told you, right now, to murder T’Challa, would you?”
Bucky snorted. “No.”
“But I told you to, so you should,” Tony pressed.
“But I ain’t gonna,” Bucky said, “because there’s no reason.”
“So what’s the reason you killed Howard and Mom?”
Bucky was quiet, as though his brain just settled into the argument Tony was making. “I didn’t need a reason, I was ordered to.”
“I’ve seen your files, Bucky Bear, I read ‘em all. I read them in four languages, because that’s how many different people they had in the program they built to keep you docile and obedient and contained. They did everything in their fucking power to make sure you never made a single decision, so you did nothing to my parents. The machine they created did. I’m furious you have the same body, but you are not the same person.”
Another silence, weighty as the last ones.
“He had your face, in that video, that body, but I’m already over that. Your questions are good ones, though,” Tony continued. “So, yeah, Steve, why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“I was trying to protect you,” Steve snapped.
“I don’t need protecting,” Tony snapped back. “I’m a big boy who can make my own decisions, and you owed me the data I needed to make those decisions.”
“He loves you,” Bucky said in a hurry, as though there wasn’t any punctuation. “He does this when he loves people. He makes decisions for them, he did it with me all the time. He just…he loves you.”
Tony huffed and paced. “I don’t care, honestly. I don’t care at all, not right now, and not while we smell like the bottom of a dead man’s closet.”
“Specific,” Bucky muttered.
“You’ll get used to it,” Steve muttered back.
“I’m still fucking furious,” Tony clarified. “And I can’t even look at you, Steve. I can’t…Bucky, just make sure he’s following me.”
About ten hours later, after the fight had gone on longer so that Bucky could be involved in its resolution, Tony sent Steve and Bucky to bed in the safe house. He pulled a holographic disc out of his pocket and activated it. Carol’s face appeared quickly.
“Taken care of?” She asked.
“Yes,” Tony nodded. “Seal it up.”
“We can’t go back,” Carol reminded him. “If none of this works and Thanos still–”
“Then I’ll follow Mr. Wizard back to wherever and destroy the Stones myself, I promise, but I…I know we did it, Carol. I know we bought ourselves a second chance.”
She quirked the right side of her mouth up as she nodded. “Then I have a stone to seal.”
“And I have a new life to live.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” she smiled and closed the transmission.
