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Tony survives.
Two years after Thanos’ defeat, they marry: by the ocean that once held fear and bad memories for Steve but without which they might never have met.
The evening sun teases the silver from Tony’s hair and softens the scars on the right side of his face.
Salt shimmers in Steve’s eyes; in the warm, seaside air; on Tony’s cheeks when they kiss as husbands, the cheers of their family and friends flowing and ebbing around them.
Later, Tony removes his loafers and rolls up his pants before extending his metal hand to Steve. “May I?” he asks, unusually polite and solicitous, but with a softness in his smile and in his gaze that rivals that of the spun-cotton clouds scattered about the sky.
Steve hesitates only a moment before he, too, shucks his shoes and socks and cuffs his pants. “Yes, always,” Steve replies, and gifts Tony a smile that mirrors the fullness and warmth curled in his chest. They share their first dance with an easy tide eddying around their ankles.
Tony said he wanted to surprise him, so today is the first time Steve has seen their wedding rings. He fashioned both of them from the battered remnants of Steve’s old shield. As they dance, Steve holds Tony’s—my husband’s, he thinks, marveling—hand flat against his chest, and runs his thumb over the unfamiliar shape of his ring.
+
Six years after Thanos’ defeat, Steve sits vigil in a hospice center. They could afford to do this at home—have a doctor and drugs and all the things that might ease Tony’s final days—at home, but.
But.
No, Steve, I don’t want you to remember me like that at home. Not in our home.
And Steve, Steve, who knows the location makes no difference because Tony is leaving him, can’t deny him his last wishes.
It’s been three days since Tony was conscious. Since the waves of pain in his bones ebbed and flowed every twenty minutes.
Cancer. Two syllables. God, such a small word to hold so much agony. Prostate cancer.
I am Iron Man.
In the end, even Iron Man is just a man.
A red and gold afghan Morgan knitted covers Tony from his chest to his socked feet. The stitches are a little uneven but it doesn’t matter. There are tears and love threaded through the yarn, too. So much love.
Now, Tony sleeps a drugged sleep. One of his hands quakes near his face; his breath rattles through his open mouth. His other hand lies under the weight of Steve’s. It’s irrational, Steve knows it is, but he thinks if he lets Tony’s hand go, Tony will go, too, and despite everything, he isn’t ready for that.
Tony’s ring hangs from a chain around Steve’s neck. Steve mouths the inscription on the inside of the band. He has read it countless times before: love endures.