Chapter Text
Pepper’s voice echoed in his ear, sounding both next to him and very far away.
“You can rest now.”
Tony’s vision went black and the next moment, everything was different.
The first thing he noticed, naturally, was that nothing hurt anymore.
The next thing he noticed was that Pepper, Peter—everyone—was gone. In their place was a rolling, golden fog, shimmering at the edges with red and green sparks here and there in the corner of his vision.
“Honey? Peter?” he called out, staggering to his feet.
Huh. Well at least he was able to do that.
Was this heaven then? Or Thor’s Valhalla? It was a bit boring, but it was rather pretty, he supposed. He didn’t hurt, so he didn’t think this was hell at least.
He didn’t really know what to think or feel, so he just stood there for a few minutes, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did.
Well, he wasn’t getting answers here; he might as well explore a little.
He took a step, and then froze, startled.
Looking down, he realized his clothed arms and legs looked somewhat… ghostly.
He could see through them, and they almost blended in with the rolling fog around him. His feet were barely visible, and—even more astounding—they weren’t even touching the ground.
Okay… well this was definitely the afterlife then.
“You’re not dead.”
The voice came out of nowhere and Tony whipped himself around.
In front of him sat a young woman. Technically she was also floating, about an inch off the ground. She had shoulder-length brown hair, slightly curled, and mischievous brown eyes, glittering with amusement. She was wearing leggings, and an odd sort of loose robe with deep pockets. The robe was red with golden accents: iron man colors. Tony couldn’t help feeling that he’d seen her somewhere before.
The woman was also ignoring him, looking at several tablets she’d spread out around her, switching her focus from one to another every few seconds.
“Have I met you before?”
“Actually you haven’t. The other me, but not me.”
Tony frowned, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The woman rolled her eyes, “Ha. And they call you a genius. Told Mom you wouldn’t know. Actually, stay there for a sec will you? I need to do something.”
Without further ado, she pulled out an odd piece of jewelry—it looked like two gold rings attached by a flat strip of gold alloy—and drew a gold circle in the air, exactly like the ones he’d seen Strange create on the battlefield.
She waved a hand and suddenly, he was looking at himself.
It was a body, laid out before him with eyes closed, covered in cracked pieces of armor. Half the body, though dirty, appeared relatively fine. The other half of the body looked like it had been burned to a crisp.
That body was undeniably his.
Tony decided he’d had enough experiences in the last few minutes that made absolutely no sense.
“What the fuck is that?” he asked.
The woman held up a finger, scrolled through several screens around her, and then took a syringe filled with a glowing green liquid out of her pocket, “I said stay still for a minute Da—er, Tony.”
Tony, oblivious of her slip of the tongue, watched her move to inject the still body in front of him, “Are you sure that’s such a—“
She pressed the syringe before he could finish speaking, and he felt a pinch above his right elbow.
“Ouch,” he said, rubbing the spot on his current, ghostly body, looking down at the still, solid body below him.
“Sorry,” she said, before waving her hand, and making the body disappear once more amid golden sparks.
There was silence then, as the woman sat still, floating quietly, apparently done with whatever task she’d just accomplished. Tony found the stare a little unnerving, but he didn’t look away.
“You look so ridiculously young. It’s really weird,” she said at length, wrinkling her nose.
Tony raised his eyebrows.
“Young?” he spluttered out, “If I’m young, what are you? You look, what, twenty-five?
“Twenty-seven,” she replied primly.
“My point stands.”
There was another silence.
Tony groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Look lady, I’ve had a really stressful day. I time-traveled, reconciled with my long-dead dad, helped bring my semi-adopted son back from the dead, fought a battle with fighters teleported in from all over the galaxy, and, oh yeah, I died. Is it too much to ask for some straight answers around here? Let’s start simple: where am I?”
His companion grimaced, “That’s, actually, particularly complicated.”
Tony rolled his eyes, “Of course it is.”
“How about we start by explaining my first point, and go from there?”
Tony frowned, “You’re first point being?”
“You’re not dead.”