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[ingeniar]

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[ingeniar]

Don't. You can't just magic this away, Stephen. I need to feel this.

[rehandle]

[ It stings. Something about the accusation, the imagined intention. Stephen bites down on the urge to argue, just asks, ]

Do you have to feel it on your own?

[ingeniar]

I have to learn how to carry it. That's how it works.

[ Thanks to the Howard Stark school of parenting for that one. ]

[rehandle]

Why

[ingeniar]

Because it does.

[ Because this is a load bearing trauma. Because if one thing goes, the whole thing goes. Because he's been in cascade failure since Titan. Because -- ]

It just does.

[rehandle]

No. Not anymore.

[ Not anymore. He'll give Tony the time it takes him to walk to where he is, but he's not sitting still anymore. ]

[ingeniar]

You can't fix it.

[rehandle]

I don't want to fix it. I want to be there.

[ingeniar]

[ Pepper used to do this. When the nightmares got really bad, so bad he'd stop sleeping and go to work instead, days and nights in a row trying to make something -- anything -- that could make it possible for him to go back and make it right, she'd just stop arguing with him. She would plant her feet and refuse to move. Sometimes she'd make him go to bed, but sometimes she'd just sit down in the workshop with him, reading, nursing Morgan, or just sitting there watching him. Not doing anything. Just being there. Waiting for the cracks to show. And then she'd stay there when he fell apart, until he could pick himself back up again.

But, she's not here, which is part of the problem -- and doing that in front of Stephen, he can't possibly ask him to -- ]

Why?

[rehandle]

Because you're mine.

Whatever else that looks like for us now, it means I hold you while you carry what you can't bear.

[ingeniar]

[ You're mine registers in stages, shuttering down through Tony's awareness. He touches his thumb to the warm circle of the ring around his finger an closes his eyes for a moment before he dictates the response. ]

All right.

But you should know it doesn't look any different. I'm not crying on the floor or anything. I'm dealing with it. You're already

You're already helping.

[rehandle]

[ There's a beat of dread terror as he registers what he just sent: truth made plain even after the commune in actions and objects and every other word but these. Is it too much? Has he spoken too soon, in too stressful a moment?

Tony replies, and he can breathe again. His blood fizzes with unspent adrenaline, and it makes it easy to not be too gentle in his reply. ]

Respectfully, Tony, you don't need to tell me what it looks like.

[ They're not so different. Stephen hasn't worked through what he's working through, but he's sat with plenty else. ]

I've got a project I can work on. Do you want to tell me where you are and I'll keep pretending I can't be there in a second, or am I good show up?

[ingeniar]

I'm in the garage. [ He's managed to work a corner for himself and his own personal projects -- the drones, a few other things. Fiddling while Rome burns. ]

You can show up.

[rehandle]

See you soon.

[ And he will, Stephen abandoning his walk to slip on the sling ring and tear open spacetime, the resulting plume of sparks strangely apt amongst the cars and Tony's little set up. ]

I see. Comfort in the arms of the Rolls.

[ A light opener as the portal spins shut at his back. ]

[ingeniar]

[ It's a cold and rainy day, so the garage door is closed, shutting in Tony and the cars and The Kinks rocking and rolling through 'Destroyer'. As the portal swirls into life, Tony prudently dials down the volume from ear-splitting to almost normal, though he doesn't glance up from where he's perched on a stool by a workbench and a scattering of circuitry, various drone parts and an old clunky laptop. As far as the game of rhetorical tennis goes: ]

If any of those magic fireworks dinged the paint, I'm telling the old man he can take it out of your allowance.

[ He puts the finishing touches on something and straightens up, apparently satisfied, before finally looking over at Stephen. ]

Gonna tell me what you're working on?

[rehandle]

[ Stephen hasn't spent much time in the garage - more often in his memories of being a younger, happier version of a fabricated, unhappier self than in his own actual life. It means that after noting that he's busy, Tony's time spent tinkering is Stephen's spent drawing his fingers idly along the hood of the nearest car as he looks over its roof at Jonty's small legion of them, easy distraction. ]

Mm? Oh. Precision. [ Which tells Tony approximately nothing. A small almost-shake of his head and Stephen turns to address him properly. ] I was talking duplicates with Shadowheart. The original spell's kind of a bulk buy, needs refining.

[ Still not a huge amount of information, but enough for Stephen, who already knows exactly what he's talking about. So, with a nod to indicate Tony's workstation: ] You?

[ingeniar]

[ The question gets a wave of Tony's hand towards the pile of faux fur and plastic parts that used to be one of Rosie's old Furbys. ]

Trying to build an autonomous device out of children's toys and software I haven't used since college. So far we're up to -- [ He reaches over and taps a key on the laptop. The partially assembled drone on the workbench lights up, blinks a couple of times, then burbles something vaguely unintelligible. Tony presses another key and it turns off again.

He sits back on the stool and turns slightly towards Stephen, frowning at him for a moment, fingers drumming absently against his knee. ]

You know, I.. [ He clears his throat, rubs his face with his palm, glances away and back again. Starts over. ] After I got back, I looked you up. Your, uh. Your people. I guess I wanted to.. break the news. Not that they needed me to, really. Turned out, they all kind of assumed we got Blipped when we didn't come back. Didn't find many of them. But I talked to your cousin, I guess? At least she, uh, she said she was your cousin. April.. something. Well, we didn't really talk. More like I spent two and a half hours listening to her crying about it all and telling stories about you as a kid. Something about a birthday party and a petting zoo? Pepper, uh. Pepper wrote to her, I guess. We get Christmas cards now.

[ His frown deepens while he thinks about it. ]

So, yeah. I meant to say that before. Let you know.

[rehandle]

[ He's still trying to recover from the psychic damage of the Furby drone's chatter when the feeling in the room shifts. Something about the look on Tony's face tugs his expression from its pantomime of discomfort into caution, and then... And then.

By the time Tony's finished, Stephen's frown is deeper too, but vague, distracted. He's not looking at him anymore, gaze lingering on the drone without really seeing it, just something to fix on while he processes what he's heard. The nod starts slow. A sign that he's listened once the silence has stretched long enough for him to notice it, a placeholder for the few more moments it takes him to open his mouth again. ] I, uh—

[ April. I looked you up. Pepper, petting zoos, Christmas cards. ]

I haven't. [ Pause, swallow. ] I haven't spoken to anyone in a while. Med school— my parents. Then I was busy being [ being what, Stephen. top of your field? a keynote speaker? author, if you squint? ] an asshole, and after that saving the world twice a week. So...

[ There's an attempt at humor in there, but it only really manifests in the words. The tone doesn't match, and when he finally lifts his gaze to meet Tony's again, it's regret that catches the light of the work lamp, dulled when he blinks it away. ]

That might be more than I've listened to her in a decade. [ And his guilt about that can wait for later. For now what's important is: ] Thank you.

[ingeniar]

[ It's not that surprising. Tony had left out the parts where the old family resentments had broken through the grief, how April had said she'd spent more time reading about Stephen in the newspaper over the years than she did talking to him on the phone, for all they'd been close as kids, especially after Donna died --

But he gets it. The way the work always seems more important. The way the work is more important, when you've got to weigh the entire universe against a handful of familiar names. Tony's been there. So he sits quietly and watches Stephen work through it. Nods slightly at the end. ]

Don't mention it. [ He crosses his arms over his chest, still frowning. ] I looked for the kid as well, but most of his family got taken. Ended up talking to some bodega guy in Queens. Great sandwiches though.

[ He clears his throat, refocuses. ]

He's here, did you know that? Or -- a version of him. Another universe version, I guess. Doesn't know me, doesn't know anything about the Avengers. Peter Parker 2.0.

[rehandle]

[ It's a strange kind of nothing. Stephen, juggling his own regret, does his best to lock in to what Tony's saying, find his way through it. Make sense of the words or track down the person in his mind, some shared point of contact. But -

Can't. The name means nothing. Peter rings true, but Quill isn't Parker, and he'd been a full grown man whose current residence is space. A creeping dread, going still with the possibility that they're not from the same place at all. Branches of one another's timelines, one of the many million places where Tony lives and Stephen never returns. Have they saddled him with the grief of an impending death that isn't coming? Taken his fidelity from him when he still has decades ahead—

Enough. Come on. The kid. The Avengers. Someone they both worked with, he assumes, if Tony's bringing it up with him now... so - ]

... Spider-man?

[ It's a guess, but he thinks it must be the right one. The kid had sounded young, and Tony had been pissed that he was there. The look on his face, though, says it's a stab in the not quite dark. ]

[ingeniar]

[ Stephen takes longer to work through it than Tony's accustomed to. There's more confusion than shared grief in his face. Tony frowns over that for a moment, a foundational structure cracked open by a fingernail's width of doubt -- but he gets there in the end, and Tony's all too ready to accept it as the product of time, distance, habitual aloofness -- and, hey, it's not like Stephen really knew Peter like he did, not like he can expect him to mourn a boy he only met a few days before he died.

So he lets it go, though not without a final flicker of suspicion, a splinter that's going to work its way in deeper whether he wants it to or not -- ]

Yeah. Though he's kind of touchy about people knowing about it. Wants his identity to stay a secret, so, you know. Don't tell him I told you.

[rehandle]

[ Spider-man. Okay. Okay, alright. There's a leaky-balloon rush of air as his stress deflates, a slow plume that comes together with his nod. Something in Tony's expression says they're both dissatisfied with his performance on that one, but what can he do? He's only ever seen the mask, not the young man behind it. Kid helped save his life, they went to war together, died for the same thing at Stephen's call. He feels bad for that, and he's helped him out when he same swinging by for an assist, but he never even knew his name.

Hard to forget the look on Tony's face after he'd gone, though—

Oh. ]

Hey. I didn't - [ Know whether we were ever going to talk about it, still doesn't, toeing an incredibly delicate line, but this is good news, rare good news, so ] - he's fine. [ What was the name? ] Peter Parker. Spider-man. He's okay. He made it back.

[ingeniar]

[ It's so unexpected that there's a beat of genuinely shocked silence from Tony, eyebrows raised. He keeps his gaze trained on Stephen as if waiting to see if it's going to turn out to be the punchline to the world's worst joke, then something cracks inside him and his expression is flooded with naked relief, surprise, happiness -- a complex upwelling of emotions. ]

Hey. Hey! Really? [ He grins, shakily, and runs his hand through his hair. Starts to get up to his feet and then sits down again. He rubs his hands over his face. ]

Great. That's -- that's really great. [ A few mental wheels turn. ] So, he and you -- you came back at the same time? Unsnapped?

[rehandle]

[ Good. That's better. Much better. He wasn't sure he'd see much of anything glad on Tony's face for the bulk of this conversation, so he'll take whatever doses of it he can get, his one smile softer, tinged with all the knowing he's doing that Tony can't yet.

And then the question, and there they are, knocking at the door of it. His smile tightens as they approach something huge and unfriendly that has so far, for the most part, stayed lurking in the shadows. ]

Yeah. Us and everyone else.

[ Pause. A complicated little tug at the corners of his mouth, swallowing down his uncertainty. It's been easy to tell himself he's been keeping it from him because he's worried about the repercussions - for Tony, maybe even for their timeline. But they're past that point. Withholding information isn't setting them up for anything other than succumbing to bombshells later down the line. ]

I can tell you more. If you want to know.

[ingeniar]

[ There aren't enough adjectives in the world to describe how little Tony wants to talk about this. Whatever it is that lies at the end of this particular rainbow might lead to treasure, but there's a darkness to get through first. An inevitability that's been plain in Stephen's eyes for weeks. An outcome that haunts Tony's dreams, yawning beneath him like a wormhole opening up.

He looks at Stephen for a long few moments, just looking at him, jaw set with resolve and unhappiness, a childish response to the unfairness of a world that's going to be taken away from him. Daring Stephen to take the words back, to say it's all a big joke. He doesn't want to hear any more. He has to. ]

I want to know. [ Grated out before he loses his nerve. Tony tries to clear his throat past the knot in it. Fails. His arms are crossed tight across his chest. He reiterates, the both of them: ]

It's -- I know it's bad. I know. But I need to know for sure. [ Actually, no -- he takes a couple quick, unsteady breaths and adds, before Stephen can get started: ]

Tell me how long I have left.