Chapter Text
Tony was banned from the internet while they were vacationing so as they're flying back to the tower he sweats. He hasn't seen any of the news articles, any of the critics or supporters, he doesn't know what kind of mob will be outside his front door and he doesn't know how many people are still squatting in his Malibu mansion.
Bruce steadily gives up trying to reassure him and just sits as close as possible instead. Bruce holds his hand as they step out of the tiny jet on the landing pad at Stark Tower, it's evening in NY and although Tony hasn't even been awake long to Extremis standards, he feels like his nerves are frayed completely.
Rhodey meets them on the roof with Harley and Emily and tony hasn't been away from his kids for that long in years, it almost makes him break down. Pepper's prepared dinner and they manage to cram everyone into the living room to eat massive servings of lasagna.
"Honeymoon?" May asks and Tony vigorously nods.
"Sexy and productive," he winks at her, Rhodey snorting beside him.
Tony spends four hours with FRIDAY and Peter (who was nominated to do the 'boring' job) meticulously being filled in on what's happened. He views news stories and videos of the Tower, peter explains the experiments and Tony uses extremis to check that the legion got everyone safely home from the wedding.
"Jeez, you weren't gone that long, nothing much happened," Peter tells him.
There was one Xavier call out and there are still reports on the wedding being filled out. Pepper and Natasha talked to the press about wedding details, Clint covered up who Fury was at the wedding and T'Chaka's army of terrifying ladies made sure nobody broke into any of Tony's labs or rooms after he left the wedding.
Most of the public seems uncaring about Tony's relationship, the rest of it are at total war over each other. There's the people out for Tony's head over the 'disgusting' act that is leaving one's soulmate and the rest who are screaming about human rights and for people to fuck off. Tony reads some of the tumblr articles and theories and almost dies laughing. Peter shows him the one's he and Harley have collected and Tony has FRIDAY send Fox the most entertaining ones.
Tony goes back to work and Bruce goes back to research and life goes back to normal.
Rhodey starts lending himself out to the army and he enjoys it, Tony knows. But none of them are getting any younger and Tony can see it in the way even the newest braces seem to drag him down, how the lines on his forehead are more pronounced than ever and how he doesn't just like he used to.
"Buddy?" Tony talks to him one day while Rhodey's back.
"Tones, looking good," Rhodey hugs the other man and Tony smiles.
"Listen, I know you're probably going to refuse but I don't want to lose you and I'm going to ask anyway," Tony starts, holding his best friend's hand.
"Would you be willing to have extremis powers?"
"Tony," Rhodes sighs, straightening, "extremis is amazing, brilliant and effective clearly. You haven't aged since Ultron at least and you have to know everyone else has noticed, we're all getting old. Peter's going to collage, Pepper has grey hairs. I don't want to leave but I can't," he says, Tony nods and he immediately thinks of how long he's going to be alone for, everyone else will die.
"But don't worry, I don't think the Hulk allows Bruce to age, he barely looks older than when we first met him.
Sure, for a while he looked a lot stressed but you'll have him," and he knows Bruce hasn't aged really but he worries.
"You can't leave the mortal life," Tony tells him, he knows Rhodey wouldn't think it's right.
"I'm going to get married," Rhodey announces as Tony frowns, "I've been dating a captain, Carol for a while now and I'm going going to ask when I see her next," and Tony can't even fault that, he want's Rhodey's happiness more than anything else.
He meets Carol months later when he's just getting back from visiting collages for Harley , mechanics obviously. They're still thinking MIT, even though they just visited Peter and his part-time bio-engineering class. they're eating ice cream even though it's cold and wearing caps to hide their faces as they enter the tower, only for Tony to walk into Rhodey's fiance when he tries walking backwards.
She's lovely and he definitely likes her, Rhodey's happier than ever.
With Harley applying for collage, Cooper, Emily and Lila start to contemplate what they want to do. Kamala's training to lead the Avengers and deal with the UN.
"I think I want to teach," Lila tells Bruce who tells Tony. Emily says she wants to study law and she'll decide from there. Cooper's thinking aerospace engineering.
Right before his eyes, Tony watches the people he loves grow and he loves it, Bruce stands steady with him, face the same as always as Tony has to start wearing makeup to fool the press into his aging because fuck, he's 46 but he looks 35.
As Harley gets into MIT, Cooper decides he wants to study abroad, having been planning on apprenticing at SI instead of going to collage. Laura's sure it's his teenage angst filling up but Bruce believes he feels suffocated.
"Think about it, he's associated with all the amazing people around him, I doubt he feels nearly as smart as Harley, let alone Peter. I don't blame him for wanting to leave," and Tony gets it, he grew up in the shadow of his father's fame, even when he died and even at the wedding there were those that asked after Howard and Tony despised it. But Tony had no way to escape, he had to go to MIT and he had to build weapons and he had to smile for the press. So he tells Cooper to go and he supports his decision against Laura and he tries to explain to the overly paranoid mother, used to being completely secure in the tower, even during an invasion. He applies for schools across England mostly, because of the common language.
Lila doesn't have a favourite subject, her only joy is looking over baby Natasha which pepper slyly pays her for, even with Tony, Bruce and FRIDAY around.
She's all around Stark Industries and Tony's still the actual CEO but unofficially they're a better team than ever before. They start to expand exponentially.
Someone on a talk show makes a joke about taking over the world and Tony has to let of some steam in a fit of giggles before he can even begin to reply.
FRIDAY shouts in his ear to not sound like a dictator and maybe the plan will still work and Tony laughs a bit harder.
"What's so funny?" they ask.
"I find it funny that up until now the question's been are you destroying the planet," Bruce asks him when the plans changed.
"Weren't we settling down?"
"Honey, we're nowhere near that," Tony kisses him when he smiles.
Kam becomes proficient in being the only one with enough time and patience to help Tony apply his make up to his not-aging face. She decides the only thing she wants to do full time is Avenge, so he supports her. He supported her delve into her religion and he supported her when she decided to move away for a while. He's just happy that she's decided to stay.
Lila is ecstatic to have another female around, continuing to smile as Tony grumbles about there not exactly being a lack of them, with the Black widow and the rest prowling around to make sure they all sleep and eat regularly.
At Harley's insistence they hold two going away parties for him and Cooper, one at home and the other at the compound. They do.
The first is held at the Tower, the penthouse prepped and covered in confetti, banners and piles of cake for the moving kids. And no matter how much Harley complains about not being a kid, Tony will remind him at he will forever be a child to him.
"I still see you as a tiny bullied ten year old, don't argue with your father you will lose," Tony laughs.
"And nobody wants to grow up as early as Tony had to," Rhodey stage whispers to him which earns him a smack from Pepper.
They've got FRIDAY predominantly monitoring Natasha who sleeps soundly on Pepper's floor, Happy who is anxious leaving the baby without a watcher agrees when Pepper does.
Cooper insists on strictly no alcohol as he's sure everyone will be excessively drinking two days after when they have to interact with Steve and the rest. Harley really wanted to see the rest of the Avengers and they all hope T'Challa will be able to make it, even as T'Chaka and Shuri probably can't.
Lila buys each of the boys a giant fluffy pink rabbit to remember her by and Nathaniel is pottering around the room trying to eat cake without his parents realizing. Clint, the sniper carefully monitors everything the toddler goes withing six feet of and is constantly sweeping the boy off of his feet and through the air.
Coulson and Fury even manage to pop in for half an hour to set off a party popper and catch the last half of whichever Disney movie is playing in the background.
"Thanks for supporting this," Cooper tells Tony and Bruce.
"No problem, kid," Tony replies.
"It's not like you won't be safe in England, what with the huge branch of Avengers there, you'll even be able to meet more people like yourself," Bruce smiles, always with the actual advice and reasoning (even is Tony has substantially improved over the years).
They don't stay up to ridiculous hours and there are no petty arguments. They do still blow things up with the iron man gauntlets and there is a small explosion from the microwave.
They head to bed happy but Tony dreads for the next one.
The point is that Harley wanted to see all his friends from the Avengers and they all know each other quite well, the only animosity is that Rogers and his crew will be there. Rhodey's been making up with Sam, he is the most reasonable one but it's still a long time coming. Tony thinks Vision would have wanted to make up with the witch eventually and the thought even brings tears to his eyes. He tries not to think about what could have been with Vis, and just trust that he had a good few years there. He knows Vision died a hero and he knows he was mourned, even on Asgard, having lifted Thor's hammer he was renowned up there (relative term) and Tony is pleased he had a hand in Vision's life.
Tony prowls around the Avengers facility, it's packed and he supposes he should expand again. Extremis triangles under his skin with his unease and he greets everyone he knows.
The twats arrive late and it's to Tony's shock that Rogers arrives arm in arm with Agent 13 herself. Tony smiles though, hoping this means Rogers is moving on. To, you know, someone that'll accept him.
"Tony," he greets the brunette with a smile.
"Captain, Sharon," Tony nods feeling more awkward and heated by the second. FRIDAY whispers in his head that she's sending Bruce and as Steve stares at him Tony aches to hide behind his husband.
"So, are you together?" Tony asks instead.
"Yes," Sharon smiles up at Steve, who shares the look.
"That's good," Tony nods at them.
"I've been told a thousand times you weren't having me, I was forced to move on," and wow, Steve still sounds bitter, Tony isn't nearly surprised.
"Sharon'll be good for you, and she clearly cares," Tony is shaking his head as Bruce appears next to him.
"Darling," Bruce kisses him on the cheek and Tony has to bite into the inside of his own to stop the peals of laughter from escaping him.
"Jordan has such interesting theories on Logan," Bruce states, Tony laughs and they walk away quicker than necessary.
"I hope it gets to a point where I won't want to run out of my own skin when I'm around him," Tony mock shivers.
"Probably not," Cooper laughs at him, Tony decides childish is the way to go and sticks his tongue out.
The rest to the party is decent and Tony barely has to get drunk so he holds back.
Tony never liked the thought of Harley leaving home but he deals well without his son around and he helps Pepper with Natasha constantly.
Lila has four years but she starts really thinking of a career path. Tony doesn't mind who takes over SI, he just wants whoever does to want it, not the way a business degree was forced on him.
Tony isn't surprised but Harley manages to meet his soulmate and fall madly in love with them during his first year. The press are vultures with the knowledge of the Stark (heir)'s girlfriend. Tony gets mad phone calls with Harley begging for help keeping her (Charlie) out of too much sight.
"It's worrying," Harley states.
"I don't mind it too much, as long as my mother doesn't have people camping outside her house or anything, they can't really get into the site anyway and as long as I can be with Harley," she tells Tony and he smiles.
"I'm locking all your records," he promises and hacks into everything right away as his eyes blaze blue over the Skype call she gasps is shock, Harley steadying her in her chair.
"There's gag orders for this but I know you won't tell anyone," Harley starts.
"It's called Extremis," Tony interjected.
"It means dad can connect to computers, tech, satellites, the suit. Most things," Harley tells Charlie.
"It also makes his eyes blue when he uses it?" She asks.
"When I actively use it," he says.
"He can also superheat his body and heal any injury he has," Harley adds.
"Why does he still have the arc reactor?" She questions.
"It's part of me now," Tony decides to leave it at that and Harley nods with him.
Lila stays in NY to study further while Emily talks about studying abroad or across the country. Tony starts to think about the house in the forest again.
Tony wears more and more makeup and Bruce has to when he accompanies Tony too. They look as old as the rest of their friends when they're outside and nobody suspects a thing. Tony feels tired and he sees Rhodey stumble in his braces once and it almost brings him to his knees as well. Carol, the loving woman gently helps him up and they keep moving.
Harley proposes to Charlie on the night on their graduation and they decide, after asking Tony to pay for it to wed quickly, so it won't be a problem for Emily as she plans on moving to Canada before the next academic year.
"I want to live separately for a while," she had chosen.
"People only think of me as privileged now and I love you but I need to build myself up," and Tony understands. His 50th birthday is pretty much ignored, Tony doesn't particularly want to think about age.
"You okay, Bruce?" He does check though.
"I'm not sure, this thing wrong with us, I don't think I like it," the man signs, running a hand down his face.
"We've aged slightly," Tony tries, he just wants to be happy.
"Not really since the Chitauri take 1," Bruce sighs.
"You have to had noticed it before Thanos," Tony hugs his husband and prays for an honest answer.
"I couldn't handle it, I had you and that was it and as far as it seemed Extremis was very good for you, better than the Hulk for me,"
"But the Hulk was the best thing for you, it gave you power," Tony pleaded, "and it brought you to me,"
"All I've wanted since the accident was to be normal and I thought we were getting there until this," Bruce kisses Tony's cheek, pulling back and clearly troubled. Tony grabs his hand.
"We've got stranger issues that the rest but we have to deal. It wasn't a mistake, nothing we did was a mistake. I regret nothing of you," Tony shakes his head as his husband walks away.
Tony hires the best for the wedding but they keep it small. Thor does turn up though to Tony's elation.
"Shield brothers!" Thor exclaims as Tony and Bruce greet him, the stale air around them must be suffocating.
"You look good Thor," Tony is sure he's wearing slightly different armour but he can't be sure. Jane is wearing a regal gown in red next to him and she smiles uncertainty at them, she looks younger the golden apples must do wonders.
"You look no different," she comments, confused.
"We don't know either," Tony shrugs, even with his many theories, most of them revolving around super healing. With the fights they're having saying we seems hard.
"How's Asgard?" Bruce asks.
"We're working on getting Darcy an Apple but Odin is hesitant, we heard something from Vanaheim that Loki may be alive though," she tells them.
"When the next Odin-sleep occurs, it shall surely be soon, I shall gift the fair Darcy with one of Iddun's apples," Thor tells them.
"How do you leave everything?" Tony asks Jane.
"I didn't leave everything. I mean, Asgard is completely different than here and I can't use slang at all. They don't expect me to have a brain as Thor's fiance but I'm getting off track. Darce said she'd join us and I love Thor and if I have to spend forever by anyone's side it's him,"
The colours of the wedding were, completely by Charlie's choice (and it makes Tony smile more) red and silver. There are flowers and banners across the church, packed with both families and their close friends, Cooper even came back to be Harley's best man.
The ceremony is simple and after Tony meets Charlie's dad.
"I wasn't sure this was true until today," he tells Tony.
"Well she's a delight and I'm happy this worked out for Harley," Tony tells him and there's a voice in his head begging for schoolmates not to be brought up, there was enough of that in the actual ceremony.
"My daughter and her soul mate, I'm very proud," Tony winces but Bruce smiles at him across the room to cheer him up. Tony gives a wobbly one back and plasters a public face on.
"It's such a nice thing when soulmates work, isn't it?"
"I'm just happy they found love," Tony replies trying to signal Happy for an escape route.
Instead, Happy just gets roped into the conversation when the bride's mother comes along. Tony groans though half an hour of soul mate nonsense until there's someone else who he just has to meet according to Charlie.
"They better not have any of your parents ulterior motives," he whispers to her.
Months after the wedding Tony's still freaking out about forever while also the people he lives die and
Bruce is still stuck on normal.
"Talk to him," Pepper says.
"Tony this is childish, do you love him?" Happy asks, knowing the answer.
"Of course I do," Tony sighs, "but I can help it's going to be a bit weird when you realise everyone you love will die and you'll have this one person who loves and supports you but is the only person who will truly know,"
Bruce moves out of their bedroom a week later after a screaming match.
"I can't deal with this!" Tony screams.
"Well I'll go then," Bruce growls and he does.
Tony cries to Rhodey and he doesn't even want to know what Nat and Bruce are talking about.
"Rhodey," Tony whispers later, having exhausted himself shouting about dealing with things like adults and learning how to cope and why can't Bruce just accept it, why can't he just accept it himself.
"You're going to die," Tony states.
"I know," Tony's best friend replies.
"I've had JARVIS die, I've had Vision die. I've let the bots fall into the ocean, I don't think I can deal with much else,"
Tony takes a year, he procrastinates, he watches shit TV. He builds flying roombas for no reason and he gets a bit stupid in Avengers fights. He sees Bruce try to get rid of the Hulk, explain everything to their kids, Emily who won't be coming home. Natasha tells them both the other is hurting and they both ignore it.
He hurts without Bruce and he still sees the age in people. Being alone makes it worse, he thinks.
Tony works tirelessly and travels, he does all the CEO things Pepper wants him to do. He meets as many people as possible but tells them nothing.
Tony works on Extremis until he is almost sure ridding himself of it wouldn't leave him crippled or dead and then he moves into the Malibu house for four months to perfect it in the workshop where it all began. He uses an actual memory bank so it's not connected to him or SI and none of his friends will know what he's doing.
He takes two days to decide if he should do it, he cuts off FRIDAY and all communications with his powers and runs along the beach until his feet burn as munch as they can. When he decides against it he throws the memory bank holding the data into the sea.
It physically hurts him to do so, he will have to watch all the people he loves die. He doesn't have the selfishness in him to leave Bruce alone. He loves that man, he feels it within the mind numbing ache that lingers each day he doesn't wake up with Bruce by his side.
The day Bruce turns up at the Malibu house gets seared into his memory. He has the bots with him and a box of donuts and Tony almost bursts into tears on the spot.
"Hi," Tony squeaks.
"Tony," Bruce sighs walking into the house. Dummy chirps happily and bumps into Tony's leg twice. FRIDAY opens the elevator and guides the bots to go downstairs.
"I miss you, Bruce," Tony starts.
"Tony, I'm so sorry," Bruce replies and they go on like that for a while.
"I'm still not comfortable with this," Bruce says a few minutes later.
"We have to accept we're not getting out of this and just make the most of it," Tony tells him and he smiles.
They phone Harley in the evening after they've eaten and caught up.
"You do realise you literally wasted a whole year," the boy says.
"Oi! I did stuff!" Tony protests.
"Yeah but you guys broke up for a reason you can't control only to decide to suck it up a year later,"
"Harley I know it was stupid but it's not the most stupid thing we've done," Bruce reasons.
"But it's the most stupid thing you've done to each other," their kid sighs and takes a hand though his hair.
"I know you're going to live forever can you just promise me something like this won't happen again?"
"We promise any problems that arise we will work out together,"
And they do, through deciding who will take over what, each new relationship or soul mate found.
They talk through the passing down of Iron Man and War Machine and they talk about what will happen with the Hulk. These days the monster is mostly calm but if another Thanos situation was to arise the Hulk would be needed.
The turmoil of the grandchildren's births, of deciding when to stop telling their secret to their relatives. When to tell the world they died and what to tell all the people, the Avengers connected to them.
They talk to each other about when to drop off the grid. And they decide how Tony will still help SI.
They refuse Thor's offer of Asgard together.
They meet Riri Williams together and they have to pull both Emily but her soul mate too out of a fire.
They move back into the bunker house permanently and they grieve together as each of their friends passes away. Fury is quite obviously the first to go and it hits Tony the hardest. He doesn't quite drink himself to death but Rhodey does talk to Bruce about when his parents died.
They visit Steve and Bucky together, once the rest of them have moved on. They aren't together but seem to be growing old on the farm in a way Clint failed.
They watch Natasha retire into security detail for SI and Clint start screening new recruits.
They help Pepper move SI into taking over the world and Tony makes many remarks about popcorn and watching things play out.
They help Clint coach Cooper through the loss of a soulmate he never go to meet and Natasha the second, much to Pepper's hate, wants to work for SHIELD.
Thor returns to introduce his first heir, a beautiful daughter named Frigga, after his mother. The baby is massive for barely three months and Jane looks exhausted.
They still refuse to migrate to the golden realm.
Tony almost looses it when Rhodey dies and he is so grateful that Bruce is there to hold him throughout it.
Crying over the eulogy that even Carol wouldn't argue with him over and Jesus, his best friend only lived until 70 and who knows how long Tony will have to fight without him. He remembers the fifteen years of abuse he suffered before he completly latched onto Rhodes and for a while, it seems like he won't be able to make it after.
Bruce comforts him but they're both sure the only thing keeping Tony alive is Extremis. With his refusal to eat or sleep, doing nothing but medical work because maybe if someone could help heart patients, somebody could have stopped the sudden heart failure that killed his best friend.
They distract themselves by tearing down and rebuilding parts of their house, they renovations are all done by hand with the bots, immortal too and they're loved by everyone when they're seen.
They get the younger people to paint the ceiling different colours every year and Bruce and Tony bask in living, even though it's hard.
By the time Tony should have died he has great grandkids who don't know he exists and Pepper and Happy are in a home. Clint and Laura are looked after in their own home by the still mobile Natasha while Bruce and Tony watch from the sidelines.
They try to meet as many of their relatives as they can under duress or in disguise. They talk to and they train the people who will shape the future, be it the Avengers or Stark industries or one of Lila's grandchildren who is determined to end all poverty. She does this partially by vising the back-end parts of the countries that need her but also by encouraging Riri, Nat, Peter and Harley to continue Pepper's work and take over the world.
And Tony finds it amazing that by the time that Harley dies and Riri takes over, they're almost there. This, of course, is greatly overshadowed by their son's death.
They mourn and they destroy things, they work to the bone and spend lots of their days traveling. All of their friends except Natasha are gone and the rest of the second generation are in homes, wheelchairs or hospitals. Peter, being a mutant has a much higher expected lifetime and continues his work with the Avengers, still after the others are long gone.
Thor returns to offer them a move again straight after Emily's death and they refuse, knowing they have to stay for Natasha, who's super reflexes experimented on her by the KCG are finally wearing off. Besides, the world isn't quite done with them yet.
While Riri's son continues to pilot the Iron Heart Tony's still there as the Iron man, of course almost nobody knows who he is now and while the UN take great measures to assure they have some power over him, making his own agreement, much like the early Spiderman one, nobody really starts to look for who the Iron man might be. This is partially due to the fact that he may have greatly threatened SHIELD to stay away from him.
So they stay in their nice forest house that rarely gets visitors, they work and Bruce solves the dirty water problem while Tony creates massive satellites and better robots. They work together to find natural ways for people to live longer, after all most of the realms have lifetimes far greater than their own, even if Asgard is the only one with immortality.
They visit the busiest cities, New York, London, where they see superheroes freely roaming and they even go to meet up with Logan, Wolverine who's still kicking (somehow).
Tony visits the planes in Afghanistan which once was the place of the caves that held him captive twice over the years. He reflects on how he's grown and Bruce comments about his lack of recent nightmares. Tony feels more confident but more weary than ever before.
They visit the graveyard where everyone they ever loved is laid to rest, by the malibu home which now belongs to people who are still, technically the Bartons.
They genetically engineer Red, Gold and Green flowers, Blue ones for Rhodey and Orange one's for Pepper. Purple for Clint and Laura and they lay them on the anniversary of each person's death and Tony still mourns.
And he knows Bruce does too, for those that proved to him he wasn't a monster, for those who welcomed him and gave him a home.
But Tony mourns for those that kept him afloat, for those that pulled him from the rubble and told him to build another way to fly.
Steve and Bucky die close to each other, when Bucky went it seemed Steve really couldn't live without him. It's a long time after The couple should have died and yet they still outlive the super soldiers.
They watch the world re shape and Tony gets new info and gets a job in SI. they watch as the massive, iron man inspired satellites go into orbit, for better connection and protection. Bruce advises ways of prolonging life and with all the new products and medical treatment people start to live longer. Not all that much but Bruce like to think people are evolving.
SI does take over the wold with Tony as Iron man still at the helm. They help people in anyway they can and SI is the shining light of the future, everyone says.
Bruce works his way to one of the R&D higher ups and he encourages new plantation and more green spaces among the city. he talks about how \robots are great but he wants to see more of the good old trees spurting back up.
It's on the five hundredth anniversary of Harley's death that Thor returns. Tony and Bruce are sitting in the breeze and heat of malibu, talking to all the graves about all the changes when they agree that the earth will survive without them, the various superhero networks for the massive armed satellites won't allow any civilians to be hurt and they leave.
They go to their house to pack bags and the bots, much thinner and taller now, upgrades are a wonderful thing. Still as chirpy and stupid as ever. They pack research and teach and clothes and Jane tells them they have supplies but the don't listen to her.
Tony feels like he's abandoning something as they stand on the roof of the house to leave but Bruce is excited with the possibility of more knowledge.
"We're basically the Vulcan elders at this point," Tony thinks. They know more than anyone, in their minds and the massive library their house and the Tower holds. They've lived longer and they've seen more than anyone and they love earth but a change of scenery is needed after this long.
"We'll come back," Bruce assures.