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“Who?”
A simple question, one small word, but it burns as it drips like acid from his tongue.
They sit in a haphazard circle, hunched over, withdrawn. Defeated. It seems their joyous reunion could only lift their spirits for so long before the gloomy atmosphere fell over them once more, casting a massive dark shadow from which it felt as though they could never escape. No one will meet Tony’s eyes.
“Who’s gone?” he repeats, the words sandpaper in his mouth. He can already guess, but he wants to hear it from them, to know for sure.
Thor shifts in his seat, staring into the distance at something only he can see.
“Loki,” he says. Part of Tony wants to celebrate, but the look on Thor’s face—the grief and pain—changes his mind. Thor continues, “Thanos killed him and slaughtered half my people with only two stones.”
Natasha lays a gentle hand on his knee and squeezes. She looks down, features ripe with guilt. “Thanos took the stone from Vision. Wanda went in the Snap, but with Vision gone, I don’t know that she cared.”
There’s the first punch in the gut. Tony was expecting it, but still, it knocks the wind out of him all the same.
“Prince T’Challa, too,” says Bruce.
A country without its monarch. Not few and far between right now.
“I couldn’t find Sam,” Rhodey says. The lines on his face are more prominent now than they ever have been, visible markers of the exhaustion they all feel. “I guess that means he’s gone, too, but maybe I—maybe I just didn’t look hard enough.”
Rogers grips Rhodey’s shoulder, forcing their eyes to meet. “It’s not your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault except Thanos.”
A hush falls over them that Tony hesitates to break. The Star-Spangled Wonder hasn’t spoken directly to him yet. There’s still oceans of bad blood between them. There probably always will be.
For the sake of everyone else, everyone who landed on the wrong side of the coin during the toss, Tony does what he does best—locks away his own feelings in a box at the back of his mind and forces himself to wade out past the safety of the sandbar in the raging ocean that separates him from his former friend.
He’ll drown, but it doesn’t matter anymore.
“Cap?”
This word burns his tongue, but for an entirely different reason.
Rogers stays quiet a moment, elbows on his knees and head bent low. Finally, he looks up at Tony with those stupid blue eyes and says, “Bucky.”
No more, no less. No fuss from Tony, that’s for sure.
The silence that follows is thick. It coils around Tony’s neck like a snake, squeezing him tighter with each passing moment and threatening to choke him. No one will ask him, he knows this already. In their eyes, he hasn’t lost anyone. Rhodey is alive. Pepper is alive. Happy is alive. He has no one else for whom he could mourn.
They’re so, so wrong.
“Tony?”
Natasha’s voice shatters the silence, ripping him from his thoughts. He meets her gaze and finds a million things in her eyes he’s never seen there before—forgiveness, fear, an apology that will never be said aloud. Despite the situation, despite the crushing weight on his chest, the corner of his mouth lifts and he gives her a nod, so infinitesimal only she notices.
It’s nice to know he still has people in his corner, even after all these years.
Tony clears his throat, a thunderous noise in the stifling stillness of the room. He has yet to tell them what happened on the other planet, on Titan, but that story can wait for another time, another day.
“There was this group of weirdos,” he starts, “called themselves the Guardians. Said they knew you, Thor.” Thor glances up at him and Tony can tell from the slump in his shoulders that they were telling the truth. “And this wizard dude. Doctor Strange. He—He gave up his stone for me. Told me there was no other way to win. Bullshit, you ask me. But they’re all… they’re all gone.”
Next to him, the talking raccoon sniffs.
Tony takes a shaking breath, forcing himself to keep going. He would want Tony to keep going.
He sits cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the circle, smile so bright it could rival the sun.
It’s okay, Mr. Stark , he says. You can tell them. They’ll help you if you let them.
“There’s—there was a kid,” Tony explains. Rhodey bows his head. “Peter. His name was Peter. He snuck onto the ship even though I told him to go home. He was always doing stupid stuff like that. Meant well, I know. Pete was always looking to help.”
His voice echoes in Tony’s ear, words he’d never spoken striking at his heart. You’re allowed to be sad, remember? It’s good for you to let go of stuff sometimes. You can’t keep everything bottled up inside you or it’ll kill you.
I can’t let go of you , Tony thinks, looking at the ghost in front of him.
You’re not , Peter assures him. Just the pain. The guilt. I’ll never leave you, Mr. Stark. Promise.
Tony screws his eyes shut. “He was like the kid I never had. An annoying pain in the ass sometimes, but leagues better than me on his worst day.”
Dust floats lazily in and out of his vision, coating his hands, mocking him. Because it’s not dust, it’s Peter. It’s Peter and Quill and the rest of them and it should have been Tony, it should have been him. It should have been me .
A hand on his back reminds him that he’s not alone, that he’s present and alive and back on Earth. Tony doesn’t have to look to know it’s Nebula. She’s heard all this and more. She understands.
Rogers, surprisingly, is the first to respond to him. “Tony… I’m sorry.”
Slowly, Tony opens his eyes and raises his head. Rogers stares back. Regret lingers on the edges of his sorrowful expression, his stupid blue eyes holding no malice or animosity. Only a deep hollowness that fills Tony’s entire being, an aching, gaping wound that might never heal.
What he’s sorry for, Tony doesn’t know. For Peter, for Siberia, for the Accords—it could be any number of things. Tony doesn’t have the energy to figure it out this second.
But if Tony was drowning before, Rogers just offered him a life preserver, something to keep his head above the water, if only for a little while.
“I’m sorry, too,” he replies just as vaguely.
Whatever Rogers thinks his intention is, he accepts the apology with a nod.
A simple gesture, one small motion, but it changes things.
Who mends long broken bridges, if only for the moment, in the face of a bigger, more paramount cause. Who sparks a fire within each of them, urging them on despite the overwhelming reasons not to. This time, who does not burn as it rolls off the tongue. Because this time, who gives strength. Who gives courage. Who fuels their collective drive to avenge the world they couldn’t protect. To avenge their worlds.
Who becomes their why .