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Tony hated dust. Hated it like no either, like nothing he had ever hated before. It was abhorrent, sinful and frankly irritating. The way it clung to anything and everything, nothing was off-limits. It was inescapable in its certainty. The proof that time covered up all things, aged them and hid them until they too were reduced to dust.
Inevitable.
Before, Tony simply disregarded dust as a simple annoyance. A nuisance, sure, but one that was easily fixed – not that he himself bothered to clean. No, no, he had people to do that kind of stuff for him. As the heir to the Stark legacy, he had to look presentable. He had an image to maintain, after all, especially when Howard Stark's belongings were weathered into dust and it was only Tony left to pick up the pieces of a fragile mind. It wasn't fitting for a Stark to reveal the darkest parts of one's own façade, after all, according to 'Social Etiquette' anyway.
Dust had taken on a different meaning for him since his lonely days as a kid trying to find his place in the world, however. Had undergone an irrevocably pejorative process, modifying its aforementioned meaning into one of anguish and rage and turmoil and loss and grief.
Tony had thought long and hard about his grief, as he attempted to shoulder most of his burdens, while simultaneously working his way through accepting his untimely death aboard a weird looking shape in outer space with nothing but an alien robot for company. It turned out the situation managed to lend itself rather well to pondering on the meaning of words, amongst other things.
Like working through grief. (In all honesty, Tony didn't imagine he would ever be free of that torment. No, Peter Parker's death would haunt him to the end of his days. Which was no less than he deserved, really.)
Tony kept replaying their conversations over and over and over in his mind, on repeat 24/7. From their very first meeting in Queens, him chatting up his own aunt, employing some of that well-documented and infamous charm of his to convince Peter to drop his homework (homework? What kind of valid excuse was that? What were they teaching kids these days?) and fly to Liepzig in Germany to battle against the rogue Avengers – all for a reason he was sure Peter still did not fully understand. Tony winced even as he recalled the memory, hating himself even more for how he coerced the young fourteen-year-old to fight for him. He hadn't even seen him as a person, not really, more as a tool to use for his own gains. That was evident enough when he left Happy to guard the over-zealous kid, drunk on the knowledge that his 'hero' – really, Tony did not deserve a place on the 'hero' mantle – had sought him and singled him out. Tony hadn't even known the kid had turned fifteen not long after that disastrous fight against Captain America, that was how bad he had screwed Peter over in the beginning.
Tony had never regretted anything before, yet there was nothing he would like more than to go back in time and redo his relationship with Peter. And this time... this time he would do things right. He would be exactly the type of mentor Peter deserved.
God, if he could go back. Tony would give anything to go back.
But what was the point if it would only lead to this conclusion: Peter apologising for dying in his arms while Tony helplessly looked on, too frozen in shock to comprehend what was happening.
To be honest, Tony never really deserved to have Peter Parker in his life. That kid was too good, too kind, too goddamn perfect for Tony to mess him up like he messed everything else up in his life. That kid was a real hero and Tony was... Iron Man. Just a guy who pranced about in metal armour, who hid himself away when the world got just that little bit darker, who refused to allow others to get too close because he knew they were better off without him. Yet Peter did not give up in the face of his crafted detached nature, and eventually Tony’s steel walls began to crumble and bend to allow room for Peter to get to know the real Tony Stark. The one so few got to see.
And now the kid was gone.
His fault.
~
Tony couldn't remember when Captain Marvel brought them back like the shining deus ex machina she was. All he could see was white-hot, blinding light sear through his closed lids and then the miraculous feeling of moving through space down, down, down past Earth's atmosphere. He also wasn't quite sure on how she somehow knew where to deposit their broken ship but that was a question for a later date.
He wasn't expecting the surge of pained betrayal that shot through him when his eyes landed Steve. Unbidden, memories of Siberia rushed to the forefront of his mind. As though he needed any more trauma.
The super-soldier appeared as stoic as Tony recalled yet there was a weakness in his countenance that spoke volumes of his anguish, of just how deeply Thanos affected even him. Tony couldn't begrudge him that – he knew exactly how that felt. He briefly wondered who his old friend had lost but as his mind jumped to Barnes, Tony decided he could live without knowing the truth on this one.
"I lost..." Tony started but faltered.
- His mentee.
- His protégé.
- His ward.
- His son.
- Peter.
"...the kid," he finished lamely.
It wasn't as though Peter was his kid. Tony was just his mentor.
But really, when you think about it, wasn’t mentor just another word for father?
Tony really did not want to dwell on those implications. He could feel his body buckling beneath the strain of carrying the universe – and failing the universe.
"Tony, we lost.”
Pepper's arms came around him then, tethering him to her in the wake of insurmountable loss. He always marvelled at her inner strength and resilience, and he would never be more grateful for her than he was at that moment.
Afterwards, his haggard eyes honed in on those who survived. Happy and Rhodey were there, as well as strangers who Tony didn’t particularly care much for entertaining – a talking racoon, some strange blonde whose eyes were aflame with vengeance and hope for restoration (Tony detested that naive look, all it would do was bring about false hope and he was too weak to survive another damaging blow) along with Nebula, who had shared in his grief for those they had lost. Most of the original Avengers survived from what little Tony could tell in his grief-addled mind, and a surge of anger shot through him with that knowledge.
Kid, you're an Avenger now.
They didn't deserve to be called that; what exactly had they avenged? It seemed to Tony that all they had done was lose the most important fight in the whole of creation. With severe consequences. What right did they have – what right did they all have – to survive while so many good, innocent people, who were just trying to do the right thing, perished? Where was the justice? For half of the universe? For Peter?
And, God, even seeing his picture sent ripples of pain through his battered body and shattered mind. The image was seared onto his very eyelid; every time he blinked Peter’s face would pop up, begging, pleading, crying, and the heart-wrenching ache inside his chest grew a little more.
Tony wanted to beat his fists raw and bloody on the mad titan's face. He wouldn't even need the suit, wouldn't care whether he lived or died. Thanos took the kid who was like a son to him. Took the sweetest, the kindest, the best kid away before he even got to experience what life had to offer.
But what was the point? He'd failed in defeating Thanos and he had no doubt in his mind that he'd fail in avenging Peter's death, even as his blood was singing with revenge. His body was too weak; mind, a shattered shell of what it once was.
So instead Tony ranted and raved to his former friend and teammate, all the while thinking of the kid who lay, terrified of his upcoming death, in his arms. I could have saved him.
And later, when everyone was discussing sleeping arrangements in the compound that had once been a home, the mere mention of his name sent him into a frenzy.
"Do not touch his room!" Tony had ordered, pointing a shaky finger in their direction. At their bemused faces that made no show of hiding their puzzlement, Tony scrubbed a weary hand down his pinched face; all the fight had drained out of him.
"Just take it. Take my room, Captain Rogers, like you've taken everything else. But you will not have the kid."
It had taken Pepper to calm him down.
(That night, she had held him as he gasped for air, begging for a reprieve, with the ghost of Peter a gaping chasm between them.
His fault.)