Work Text:
He met Natasha at the bus stop.
“Tin Man,” she said with her trademark half smile.
“Scary Spice,” he returned.
Another beat passed before they were locked in a tight embrace. Tony pressed a kiss to Nat’s temple and they both let the tears gather for a few minutes.
“He’s dead?” Nat whispered through tears.
“Yeah, chicken,” Tony returned. “We won.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Same reason you are,” Tony replied as he pulled away from the hug, but grasped her hand and squeezed. “Winning required it.”
She took a breath and squeezed back before dropping his hand. “Where is here anyway?”
“Oh, god, I really hoped you knew,” Tony chuckled. “You’ve been here for a while.”
Nat shook her head. “I just got out of the orientation meeting.”
Tony considered this. “When Clint got back, we had another… right,” he finished. “Time is a fluid concept.”
“Says the man who invented time travel.”
“Quantum realm manipulation.”
“Sure, because those are different.”
“Well, one has plasma and one makes you Orson Wells, so, yeah.”
She smirked at him again, and he looked around them. “So, you chose the book?”
“The book?” Nat quirked an eyebrow up at him. “I wasn’t given a book.”
He made a face. “I got a checkbook and a book book and the guy doing his best Agent Agent impression told me to - wait, what were yours?”
“I got a ballet shoe and a teddy bear, and I chose the teddy bear.”
He was quiet for a minute. “Tell me?”
She worried her lip. “He asked a few questions, like why I tricked Clint, and why I felt it had to be me, but then there were others. Like, why I chose Cap back then, why I never called you, and if I liked peanut butter sandwiches, and if I ever missed speaking Russian. I’m sure it was quick, but I felt like I was in there for hours, but it wasn’t boring, it was…”
“Restful,” Tony supplied.
She nodded and continued. “He said that just like when I had a physical body, I’d be making a series of choices, that choices are the most important. The first one, he said, was that I had to choose between who I thought I was and who I always wanted to be, and he handed me the shoe and the bear. I knew the only choice I had was to pick the bear, so I grabbed it, and smelled it and it smelled like…”
She turned to him. “It smelled like the shawarma shop that first battle. And then I took another breath and it smelled like you, metal and oil and sweat, and then another and it was that terrible cologne Clint got Steve from Duane Reede-”
“Oh, Jesus, the knock off Georgio Armani one that could have actually killed something?”
Nat started laughing. “Yeah, and then they all just kept coming - the smell of Pepper’s carrot casserole at Christmas, of Laura’s shampoo, and then the morning air of Wakanda, and then he was handing me a bus ticket and telling me to stand in line, and that my next choice would be given to me by someone who once chose me.”
Tony nodded as he processed all of that. “He asked me why I chose Pepper.”
Nat chuckled. “Anyone who knows you could have answered that for him.”
Tony smirked. “What would you have said?”
“She was your center of gravity,” Nat replied. “You always flew off kilter when she wasn’t there, and I would imagine it was the same for her.”
“That’s,” Tony paused. “Fucking profound, Romanov.”
“I’m choosing to not get offended at your shock, Stark,” Nat smiled. “Go on.”
“I actually told him something similar, and then he asked more details, like why I chose her after Extremis, and then again after another big fight we had. Then he asked why I chose Peter, and why I chose to leave Morgan and Pep this time -” Tony paused to swallow a few tears and Nat took his hand once more. “Then he asked if I wanted to be Howard’s son or Jarvis’ and I told him that I was never not Howard’s son and he told me that’s not what he asked. So I chose the book, and then he handed me a ticket, and told me to get in line.”
She opened her mouth to ask more questions, when they heard the squeal of bus brakes. An old Roadmaster came around the corner and they were beckoned on board with the other dozen or so souls they had stood with.
They sat in silence as the scenery passed by. After a few seconds, Tony noticed something.
“Why, do you think, is there so much space between all the houses? Why are they all gated with walls and… there’s literally nothing that connects them to anything else. Like, their yards don’t even seem to touch,” he marveled.
“They made different choices,” someone answered, and Tony looked up to see a conductor smiling in the aisle. “You chose community. They chose isolation.”
“I have no idea what that means,” Tony said.
The conductor laughed and looked at Natasha. “How many times did you hear him admit that in the before?”
Too shocked to answer, Nat just blinked.
“Well, Mr. Stark,” the conductor continued. “Your guide will explain all. Only a few more minutes.” He reached into his pockets and produced sunglasses - not unlike ones that Tony had once worn with Jarvis or Friday built in. Or Edith, Tony swallowed once again.
They passed more and more mansions, disconnected from everything else, until they made an abrupt right turn and the conductor called out for them all to put on their glasses.
BAM
A flash of light and a feeling of slight nausea - someone called out I wonder if that’s what apparating feels like - and the bus was suddenly parked in a meadow with bright sunshine and honest-to-God singing birds.
“I hadn’t thought of where we got on as dark,” Tony started.
“But this,” Nat finished and gestured around.
They were shuffled off the bus and told to stay on the cement pad surrounding the bus, and that their guide would be with them shortly. One by one, everyone around them was called away and Tony began to get nervous.
Then he heard the voice.
“Anthony.”
Tony hadn’t heard that voice since…
“Jarvis?”
There, in the flesh - or whatever this all was - stood the first man Tony had truly felt loved by. Clad in his traditional three-piece suit, complete with a warm twinkle in his eye and arms outstretched for a hug, Tony felt 8 years old again and couldn’t stop the tears. He flung himself at Jarvis, who cried in return.
“My boy,” Jarvis said over and over again, “my precious boy, how good it is to see you.”
“Oh Jarvis,” Tony could barely breathe with the tears. “I have a few questions.”
“You always have,” Jarvis chuckled, and they will be answered. Shall we?”
“Wait,” Tony said, wiping his tears and turning towards Natasha. “Do you want to come?”
Nat blinked a few times, confused, and then…
Your next choice will be given by someone who once chose you.
She smiled and nodded, the scent of shawarma filling her nostrils, as the pair of Earth’s mightiest heroes followed the butler towards a large rock situated next to a pond. When they were settled, Jarvis produced bottles of liquid for each of them and told them to drink. When Tony enquired what was in it, Jarvis told him to stop questioning everything and just drink. Tony grumbled as Nat laughed, but both finished the bottles quickly.
“Now,” Jarvis said, “some business. Agent Romanov,” he turned to Nat, “how would you choose for me to address you?”
“Nat,” she smiled. “And, can I just say, it’s really good to put a face to a voice?”
Jarvis smiled warmly. “You may, Nat. Now, the liquid. As you can tell, your bodies are not fully corporeal here, but pleasure is a part of this world, as is touch, and joy, and other things, and so you must be prepared for the High Country now that you’ve left the Shadowlands.”
“The what now?” Tony said.
“Your life were lived in shadows, Anthony. You knew much, but not all, and so your life was in the shadows of all possibility and truth. Yes, I know you’ve been to space -” Jarvis held up a hand to Tony’s open mouth, “but this place, and the place you are going, they are vast and explorable, and, more importantly, known.
“That place,” he pointed to a path that seemed to lead up, “is called the High Country, and it is where you are heading, and where we all are, and where you will wait, too.”
“I’m so confused,” Nat admitted.
“You should be,” Jarvis replied. “We are in the process of re-writing your consciousness. The Low Country, which is where we are now, is for the transition. So let us start there.
“The choices you were presented with when you first arrived represented choices you already made in your corporeal life. Fundamentally, every choice that everyone makes every day is either about choosing isolation or community. Now, sometimes there are competing interests and things get particularly complicated - like during the fight in your team that resulted in quite a lot of chaos - but that’s the root of all choices.”
“So, my shoes were the Red Room and the bear was -”
“Your family, yes.” Jarvis smiled. “And regarding your father and myself -”
“- what did Howard chose?”
“Patience, Anthony,” Jarvis said.
“Have you met Tony?” Nat’s tone was loving. “But I’m curious, too.”
“The first thing you must realize is that no choice is permanent. For the rest of forever, you will be given the option to change your choice. This is true for everyone, every soul that has ever worn skin. Everyone arrives in the same manner you did, and has the same interview. They are asked about choices they made and if they’d make different ones, but 95% of the time - we are not surprised by the final decision.
“Howard, well, he surprised us.”
Tony’s head whipped around to stare at Jarvis. He’d been looking around at the lake, glancing at Natasha, fiddling with his fingers, but with that statement, his eyes bored into Jarvis’.
“Howard was given a choice between who he was as he died and who he was when you were born. He was given the choice between wealth and family, and the rumor is that he didn’t hesitate for a second in his choice to chose family.”
“Do you know,” Tony found his throat clogged once more. “Do you know what his things were?”
“That’s his story to tell you,” Jarvis said gently. “And he will, I’m sure, because he’s waiting for you with everyone else. Ana, your mother, Yinsen, and -”
Tony held up a hand. “When do I see them?”
“Soon,” Jarvis soothed. “There are a few more details to go over and you need to continue to strengthen your new form. You should no longer need your glasses, however, your vision should have adjusted.”
Tony started bouncing with the nervous energy that Nat was familiar with, so she placed a hand on his knee to calm him as Jarvis took back their sunglasses. Of course, it didn’t work, but the action brought back memories of a life before she’d fought some of her best friends at an airport in Germany and made her feel like something in her knitted back together.
“The houses,” she said out loud. “On the bus, the ones that didn’t touch anything else.”
“Power, I’m assuming, they were given the choice and they chose power?” Tony responded.
“Among other things that ultimately mean they chose themselves, yes,” Jarvis conceded. “You would know some of the more recent inhabitants.”
“Humans only, right?” Tony clarified, thinking about how his personal villains had ranged from an old white bald dude to an old purple one.
Jarvis nodded. “There are other High Countries for other species. And also other High Countries for other timelines and universes. I’m told that there is one in which you never met Pepper, but still managed to survive.” Tony scoffed, but nodded.
The trio sat in silence for a few moments, before Nat spoke up. “So, I chose family, I can tell that’s what the bear was, but they’re all still alive, so who is waiting for me up there?”
Tony reached over and took Nat’s hand in his, but let Jarvis answer.
“Well, Miss Romanov, the nature of love is that it expands, not contracts. So, those of us who love Tony, and who have been waiting for him, we have learned of you. We have seen your bravery and your kindness and your love. If you are Tony’s family, you are ours, and we have been waiting for you on this side.”
“I’m your family?” Nat’s whisper broke over her tears.
“Oh, Nat,” Tony’s voice held more love than Nat knew was possible. “I only adopt people who once tried to kill me. It’s standard policy.”
Nat bit out a laugh. “I was actually trying to keep you alive, you idiot.”
“Sure, Natalie, sure.”
There was peace for a few moments, punctuated by tears and heavy breaths, before Tony asked Jarvis what they did now.
“Well,” Jarvis checked his ubiquitous pocket watch, “it’s time now, we can start the walk.”
______________
Time was, of course, a fluid concept in the High Country, so Tony had no real idea how long it was before he was summoned to the bus stop.
Jarvis hadn’t been kidding that his people would become Nat’s people. Ana doted on her - as Tony knew the older woman would - and she and Maria became fast friends. There were hard conversations here in the High Country, but Tony noticed that there were no more tears. Even when something was painful to hear, it didn’t cause pain and he wasn’t sure what the distinction was, but it was there.
Like when he asked Howard about his 13th birthday.
“I was so confused, Dad,” Tony confessed. “I thought you’d be so proud of me, and to have you-” he trailed off, but the pain that normally tightened his chest at the memory wasn’t there. Neither, of course, was the arc reactor scar, or the myriad of others he’d collected over the years.
“I forgot you were my son,” Howard said simply. “I had known you were smarter than me before that, but to watch you... “ it was now Howard’s turn to trail off. “This place brings clarity, son. The longer you’re here, the more you’ll realize what Shadowlands really means and how true it is. I’m sorry our love got caught in one of those shadows, Tony. I am so proud of you, I always was, I just never knew how to say it.”
“I was afraid when you heard about my choice that you’d be angry,” Tony confessed.
“Shadow Howard would have been,” Howard confessed. “But here, I understand completely and I long ago chose to be grateful that Jarvis and Ana loved you so well that when you were presented with the choice of family, you took it.”
There were unending opportunities to be immersed in love and joy and Tony was frequently amazed at how vast those definitions were. For example, he was quickly presented with his own workshop in a quirky building that held millions of others. He talked to people who worked on the first printing presses, and others who had worked for his own company as they continued to tinker to their heart’s content. Nat found a dance studio full of children, where she got to redeem choices made for her into ones she made herself.
“Do you know who I’m meeting?” Tony asked Jarvis on that day. It was Tony’s first time to be the greeter and he’d learned that meant that the choice that the person made was intimately tied to him.
“Steve Rogers,” Jarvis replied.
Tony wasn’t surprised.
Part of being in the High Country was knowing what was happening in the Shadowlands. The only part of the vast world that contained grief, for example, were the designated areas where beings could grieve for their loved ones still in the Shadowlands - adding their tears and wails to the cries for justice, or of pain, or of I just don’t understand. Tony and Nat had spent much time in that space as Steve went to get his dance, and Bucky and Sam became the leaders that the next round of heroes needed. When Pepper cried out in the night that she didn’t understand, and Tony would whisper you will soon, my love, just hold tight, I’ll see you on this side, I promise, it’s only a matter of time.
The Steve that met Tony off the bus was the version that Tony had gone to space with, but his face held far more wisdom and still touches of pain.
“Cap,” Tony greeted, as the men embraced and Steve wept.
“Tony,” Steve returned through choked sobs.
“How many years for you?” Tony asked.
“Ten, it’s been ten years since Thanos,” Steve replied. “What is this place?”
Tony smiled. “Come, I’ll explain everything,” he threw his arm around Steve’s shoulders and walked them towards the rock that he and Nat had first sat on - both a moment and eternity ago. They talked for a few moments - Tony giving the basic layout of the Low and High Countries, answering some questions, before Tony finally had to know.
“What were your choices?”
Steve took the final drink from the transitionary liquid bottle and smiled. “My sketchbook and the broken shield I left in Siberia.”
“Well, that’s heavy handed,” Tony quipped and Steve laughed.
“I actually looked at him and told him that it wasn’t even a choice, and the being told me I had already made it so many times that this final time was more apparent. What were yours?”
“Jarvis’ copy of Tale of Two Cities or my father’s checkbook.”
“Also a bit heavy handed,” Steve replied and the men laughed as old friends.
“Did you know you split the timeline when you chose Aunt Peggy?”
“I didn’t,” Steve confessed. “But the orientation guy said that one day, I’d meet myself here and that I would be the only man to do that, but since both of us belonged to this version of all of you, and both of us chose this version of all of you, then both of us should be here.”
“Are you surprised it wasn’t Aunt Peggy that met you at the bus stop?”
Steve laughed. “I’m not. She wasn’t… thrilled with my decision and the ramifications of it. And if this is about choices, that’s one I’m still not sure I should have made the way I did. But,” he smiled sideways at Tony, “they told me you all know all of this.”
Tony nodded. “That’s part of the High Country existence. Everything makes sense now.”
They sat for a while longer - Jarvis had explained that Tony would know when Steve was ready - before making their way towards the path.
“Okay, sweet cheeks,” Tony said, holding out his hand. “Time for us to make our way to everyone else. Your ma is ready to see your spine all straightened out.”
Steve laughed. “Will she even recognize me?”
Tony smiled. “You are knitted into her soul, Steven, she knows you the way she knows how to breathe.”
Steve smiled back and the men began to walk.
“Now, first things first, we gotta go get a cheeseburger.”
Steve’s laughter rang loud and clear. “Of course we do, Tony. Of course we do.”
_________________
Soon, Nat went to greet Clint, who then went to greet Laura. Tony went to gather Rhodey, and then Happy, who in turn went to get May. Steve’s second self showed up with Bucky and the three men were on the rock by the lake longer than anyone else. Bruce showed up later and Nat went to collect him, then it was Sam and Bucky took the walk down the path. Wanda was greeted by Pietro, T’Challa by his father, Shuri by her brother.
Tony was in his workshop one day, playing with some robots he had built with Rhodey, when Jarvis came to get him.
Pepper.
As more and more of their family chose the High Country, their connected dwellings kept sprawling out and out and out. The laws of physics were one of the first things that Tony understood as abandoned - they only applied in places that would bring joy, like the workshops, or the trampoline room - so it was completely possible for every person he had ever loved to live in the same place and yet be in separate buildings.
All his dreams were coming true.
“Ms. Potts,” Tony greeted her off the bus. “Tears for your long lost boss?”
“Tears of joy,” Pepper returned. “I hate job hunting.”
They clung on the rock for a long time and even though time meant nothing, Tony knew that it meant a lot in that moment. Words and stories and questions tumbled out; it was a pair of stilettos and a pair of slippers … Morgan is married, did you see … Peter and MJ have a baby… I did the best I could by your legacy, but I was going to kill you when you gave Peter Edith, I swear, Anthony… oh, I am so ready to see Happy and May… I chose you every day, Anthony, while there was breath in that body, how could I choose anything different?
They were ready a while later when Morgan’s first baby came to them before it went to her, and then again when the second one did as well.
Tony’s last two times down the path were for Harley and for Peter - his sons - and he was glad to retire from that duty when Morgan came and it was Pepper’s turn.
“Dad,” Morgan hugged him when she and Pepper returned. “Have you been resting? Mom always said that’s what you were doing. You were resting and waiting for us, but I told her you’d be building and waiting.”
“Well, Morguna,” Tony smiled at his girl. “I somehow learned to do both.”