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[ingeniar]

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[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.

[rehandle]

[ A cold little pit presses in behind his sternum, sinking.

He's never had to deliver bad news in the family room. Never told a patient he'd promised miracles that the surgery didn't go according to plan. He's got plenty of experience on the other side - told his life was as good as over, told the lives of loved ones had already ended - but this is something else.

It's not the kind of triple threat anyone wants to be. Bearer of bad news, partner in the waiting room, and the butterfly whose knowing wingbeat set a course for impending doom. ]

Not long. [ It's not a band-aid pulled away. Those two short words are more like staples torn out, wound ripped wide. A few seconds of numb nothing before reality hits - he fills it with context. ] When you arrived, you didn't look much different from that last day.

[ And every day he wakes to him creeping a little closer. How long until he's older than he'll ever be? Stephen boths knows and doesn't know. Keeps it at bay. The answer is vague because he's never wanted precision enough to ask for it. He still doesn't want it now.

Eyes fixed on Tony, feet fixed to the floor, Death's harbinger waits, looming and uncertain, for a sign to press on - or to step in and take some of a weight that might prove too heavy to shoulder. ]

[ingeniar]

[ So there it is. Tony feels himself nod a little, accepting it from a distance. The death sentence, the terminal diagnosis. But not as certain as it could have been, with the possibilities laid before them, made real by the fact that they're having this conversation at all. Timelines spinning out, hypotheses answered.

Perhaps it can be changed. A tiny, foolish hope. But enough to keep Tony's gaze steadier than it might have been without it. ]

Right.

[ Still, it hurts. The thought that he might not see Morgan grow up feels like a yawning pit opening up inside him, capable of swallowing everything into a deep and terrible darkness -- so he turns away from it, thrusts it from his thinking. Not yet. He won't think about it until he has to.

Not yet.

His jaw works, muscles bunching. For a lack of anything else, he repeats: ]

Right.

[rehandle]

[ There it is - his sign. Tony Stark, lost for words. What clearer sign is there? And still some part of him thinks he should keep his distance. He, Stephen Strange, the man who set him off down the path that would take him from his family - the man who now benefits from their absence.

But he's been thinking that way since the day Tony arrived. Regretting a past he cannot change, keeping a hair of distance it's far too late for. Mine. Yours. Staying an arm's length from his loss, his grief, his death, isn't a courtesy. It's cowardice.

Stephen swallows his fear past the lump in his throat. A few short steps and it's easy to reach for him, cover the nape of his neck with a palm, let the other skirt across the small of his back as he draws Tony in, wraps him up in arms, huffing a heavy breath out over his shoulder and squeezing a little tighter than he means to for a moment once he's got him there. No more distance. Give him space. A little pocket of it, carved out of this strange world by the border of Stephen's body, to breathe or grieve or hide in. Whatever he needs. ]