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His lungs were roasting. Oxygen couldn't pull past his lips and eyesight was a crapshoot. Hearing? Utterly toast. The whole left side of his body was basically a cinder; ash flaking off the appendage that used to be his arm. His world was pain.
But it was worth it.
Morgan would never know the fear that had sat trapped in his gut for nearly a decade.
Peter would survive to be the man, the genius, that Tony had known he would become. Better than him.
Pepper... She was safe. She would always be safe.
If he had to die, well, so be it.
But, God, it hurt...
It hurt...
It...
“Guuuuuuuuuh!!!” Upright, sweating, sweltering, breath screaming through his lungs...
“Jesus!! Fuck; God...!”
“Tony? Tony, hey; hey...” Long hair, beautiful face, Pepper... Once she had his, most, of his attention, she helped him sit up against the headboard and rubbed his back. “You're okay... it's alright. You're safe.”
Too early to talk, Tony held his hand against his eyes and shivered. Right hand... the left was still in a sling for another few weeks. Comes from holding an infinity stone to help blast a wrinkly bitch out of existence. Worth the cost. He'd take a shattered humerus and third degree burns any day. Not that the rest of them had come out much better.
Together, Steve had said; though it had been Quill to suggest it. Who knew the Rocketeer would be the purveyor of grand schemes that actually worked? He'd already had a trial run and everything, apparently.
So while Light Brite had been busy holding off Thanos they'd lined up like a spangly cabaret, equipped with gauntlets and sharing stones in some sorta giant kumbaya moment. Tony and Steve had both held the Space stone, Bruce and Thor had held the Power and Reality stones respectively and Strange had managed the Time stone; presumably his overly affectionate cloak had counted as backup. Clint and Quill had held the Soul stone, which had left the Mind stone; shared between Wanda and Bug's Life.
Yeah, so, it had worked; clearly. They'd made it. They'd all made it. A little roughed up, of course. Worse for wear. Broken bones, burns; Quill nearly lost a toe. But they did it. Turned the tables on Thanos; big time. Funny, though, watching him turn to ash with the rest of his mooks had only felt like... horror. Because it had still felt too much like Titan; watching the kid vanish though his fingers.
But then the kid had been right in front of him; whole. Scratched up – but they all were. But alive. And broken arm or not he'd clung to him...
“Same one?”
Tony blinked back to his room – to Pepper. He breathed, nodded, swallowed. “Yeah.” Voice still kinda raspy... like his throat had been scorched. Like he was still burning.
But he was alive.
They all were.
The ash not even settling before the lost had begun walking through it; Bruce the first to break away to nearly crush Natasha. Quill hadn't been far behind; chasing after a green chick before... well it had all gotten a bit unconscious by that point.
The point was... they'd won.
Over Pepper's shoulder, the Baby Spy 6.3 passed along a few warning rumbles. They had about 13 seconds before Morgy went nuclear.
Pepper rubbed his arm. “I'll be back in a sec.”
“I got it.” He was already sweeping his legs from the mattress and groaning for his trouble when Pepper folded her arms and gave a very vocal non-verbal glance at his sling. Sheepish, Tony held out his last remaining not broken arm.
“Okay, yeah. We'll both go.”
Eyes rolling, Pepper let him pull her out of bed. “Your daughter is going to be the single most spoiled child on the planet.”
Tony snorted against her hair. “Well yeah; of course she is. After all, I'm... me.”