Chapter Text
"Huh? What the h..."
Tony blinked, looked around at his surroundings, wondering where he was. The last thing he remembered didn't resemble what he was seeing now because he definitely had not been in what now looked to be his mother's garden! No, wait that couldn't be right, could it? His mother had been dead for decades now, and although ithe gardens were maintained, her gardens no longer exited. So how could he be standing here in the middle of her garden of all places? The sun grew brighter with each passing second and he finally had to blink away tears because of it.
Oh man, this was really beginning to mess with his head!
"Hello, son."
Tony froze when he heard the voice, not wanting to believe whose voice he just heard anymore than he wanted to believe he was standning in his mother's garden. Yet here he was, standing in the garden in the sunlight, feeling its warmth on his skin. As much aa he wanted to deny the reality of the situation, he knew that he couldn't. Not when he had such real, tangible things proving to him otherwise. So after taking a deep breath, he decided he might as well confront the thing in this place that he didn't want to confront, and get this over with.
Man, he really wished he had a pair of his sunglasses with him so he would have to look the man in the eye while he did this!
"Hello, Howard."
Tony knew that his own tone had been more frigid than the coldest day in Siberia, and given it was his father he'd addressed it to, he couldn't bring himself to care even one tiny bit.
Of course, the senior Stark didn't fail to notice the iciness of his tone, either, and a furrow of the eyebrows appeared, "It's been almost thirty-four years since we last saw each other, son, and all you have for me is a 'Hello, Howard'?"
Tony laughed a mirthless laugh, then retorted, "It's really nothing less than you deserve to get from me because whether we saw each other thirty-four years ago or an hour ago, it doesn't change what happened between us. I don't want anything to do with you, Howard!" He turned his back to his father again, and started to look around at the garden.
Howard didn't speak for a moment, then he tried again, "Okay, I guess I deserved that--"
"You've got that right!"
"I guess I deserve that. I know I wasn't exactly Father of the Year material--"
"Ha! That maybe be the biggest understatement of the century... no actually make that in the entire history of the world!"
"Aren't you being a little melodramatic?"
"I don't think so!"
"So you really don't want to see me?"
"Not if I can help it!"
Howard sighed, "Look, I know, and I understand that. But as cliched as this is going to sound, us meeting in this place, at this time, is a gift, and it is being wasted by--"
"By what? By the fact I don't want to talk to you now that you want to talk to me? You know, when I actually wanted to talk to you back then, you never had the time. Well, now I don't have the time for you! As for this being some kind of gift like you claim it is, then I don't want it."
"Whether you want this or not, we're both here so you... we might as well take advantage of it."
Tony laughed again, and shook his head, casting a glance over his shoulder, "You're really a piece of work! You want to talk to me only after you've been dead for thirty-four years and you've got me cornered in Mom's garden!"
"And aren't you the least bit curious as to why I'm here and you're 'cornered in Mom's garden' as you put it?"
He wanted to ignore his father, he really did, and act like he was just some white noise in the background of the garden, but Tony couldn't because he knew the man had a valid point. He was curious about why he was here. He also wanted to know why being here in this place in this place didn't quite feel like the same as like being in a dream did.
"Oh my... I'm... I'm dead, aren't... I died? I'm dead."
"Was that a question, son, or was that a statement?"
"You tell me, Dad, which is it?"
His father didn't respond to him for such a long time that Tony was forced to turn around to make sure he was still there. To his relief he was still there, and he was watching him, "Well? Which is it?"
"You're not dead."
Tony looked around at the garden, something that belonged in the past. Then he looked at the man, who also belonged in the past, and raised an eyebrow said, "I think I am dead, and for whatever reason I don't think you want to tell me."
"And why wouldn't I? What reason would I have to lie to you?"
"I don't know, what reason would you?"
"We're not going to get anywhere if you keep throwing all the questions I'm posing to you back to me, Tony."
Tony nodded, conceding to his point, "So what is going on?"
"First, let me ask you. What's the last thing you remember before... well before you realized you were standing in your mother's garden with me?"
He finally decided that keeping his back to his father was pointless, he turned around to face him, "What's the last thing I re..."
The elder Stark nodded, "Yes, what is the very last thing you can remember before being here in this place or seeing me?"
"Let's see I was... I was..." Tony stammered, he could feel his father watching him as he tried to remember where he was and what he had been doing before arriving here.
He saw clear, shimmering, blue water that was peaceful until it was broken up suddenly but a small body jumping in.
The smell of chlorine then overtook the scent of the flowers around him.
He could hear kids laughing intermingle with splashes of water.
"What the... Pool. I was having a day at the pool with my family!"
His father nodded, "Yes, you were, son. What else do you remember?"
Hey, Daddy, I bet I can swim to the other end of the pool faster than you can!
Oh, you do, do you, Little Miss?
Uh huh!
"Who's the little girl?"
"What?"
"I asked who the little girl is?"
"She's my daughter."
"Ah my granddaughter then."
Tony gave him a started look, as though he hadn't realized this fact for himself before Howard had stated it, "Yes, I guess she is."
"What's her name?"
"Eva Alessandra Maria Stark."
"Your mother would like that."
"Mom would have loved it. And she would love Eva... and Eva would love her."
"So what happened next, son?"
Tony had to give the question some thought before he confessed, "I... I don't know. I can't remember!"
"Yes, you do. You do remember."
"No, I don't! I was just there and then I'm here! I don't know what happened in between or how I got here!"
Come on, Tony! You better get your sorry... Come on! You are not doing THIS to US!
"What the... what was that? Why does Rhodey sound like that?!!"
"You know."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You know what happened, or rather you know what's happening. You do know how and why you're here right now."
He's still not breathing!
Pepper's frantic voice cut him to the core of his being. He heard Rhodey mutter a few choice words, the kind Pepper would want to kill him over for using in front of the kids. He really hoped none of the kids could hear or were paying attention to their Uncle Jimmy right at the moment.
Tony, man, you have got to start breathing again!
"You keep saying I am not dead, but if I am not dead, then why do I keep hearing my wife and my brother saying that I need to start breathing again?"
His father sighed, then looked at a nearby rosebush, his answer given in a low voice, so low Tony almost didn't hear what he said. "It's because for the moment, clinically you are dead. You would have to be at least that much... dead in order to be here in this place."
"So you are lying! I'm dead! Oh my... I'm dead!"
The older Stark kept quiet, not responding to him.
When he got no response, Tony continued to fume, "I should have known better than to believe you for even one millisecond!"
As his son muttered some obscenities under his breath, the older of the two men remained calm as he told him, "You're not dead dead yet, son."
"I'm not 'dead dead yet'. What the... what is that supposed to mean exactly? I'm, what then, mostly dead?" The moment the question exited his mouth, Tony realized what he had said, and he grumbled, "Great now I'm starting to use references from The Princess Bride!"
"Is that such a bad thing? Because as I seem to recall, your mother really loved that ridiculous movie."
"You know my wife would be offended to hear you call The Princess Bride ridiculous. It was not a ridiculous movie! It might have been a little inconceivable yes, maybe, but it isn't a ridiculous movie!"
His father smiled at him, "You do realize that you're doing it again? You're quoting from that--"
Tony groaned, then shaking his head, he pointed a finger at the older man, "You know what's actually in fact completely and totally inconceivable?" His question was of course rhetorical, and even if it hadn't been, he didn't actually give the other man a chance to reply to what he'd said, "What's inconceivable is the fact that you are the one here instead of Mom! If I had to be trapped in between life and death or whatever this, this place is, why can't it have been her or even Jarvis? Why did it have to be you?" As his words became one with the air, Tony could see actual hurt in his father's eyes but he couldn't make himself care.
"I don't know why it's me instead of your Mother, but is being here with me really such a horrible thing?" He was rewarded with a humorless laugh for that question.
"What do you think?"
"I think you hate me something for something that wasn't actually my fault?"
"Something that wasn't actually your... You know I don't know what you're talking about exactly but it doesn't make a difference because I don't care ! I do not want you here! I don't want to see you, and I certainly don't want to talk to you! And before you continue on with the whole I hate you for something that wasn't your fault, let me say this now: I know about Steven, Dad! I know about my brother!"
"Oh."
"I tell you that I know about a bombshell of a family secret and all you can say in response is Oh?"
His father shrugged, "What else do you want me to say?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe you could start with an apology for being such a completely cold-hearted... you know what? Why am I still talking to you? What's even the point? You would have to care to be sorry and you never cared anything about me while you were alive! Why would the fact you're dead make you want to care now?"
"You're right. I didn't care enough abouy you while I was alive. But I've had a long time to think about how everything I did that wasn't right while I was alive."
"Oh, so you're admitting you were wrong back then?! That you were not the greatest dad in the world?"
"Yes, I... supposed I am, if it helps you in any way to hear it."
"Actually, no it doesn't help, like at at all and you and you want to know why it doesn't help? It doesn't help because you're a little too late for your admissions to amount to a pile of--"
Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? Mr. Stark?
"I didn't recognize that voice."
"It might belong to an emergency medic, which means our time is about to run about."
"Then I will be sure to hurry with this. I just cannot understand why you were the way you were towards me all of my life. If you think me becoming a father myself somehow magically turned on the understanding between us, then you're wrong. No, actually if my becoming father has done anything, it made me understand you even less. When I remember how you were towards when I was growing up I... I can't imagine ever being the same way with them. Ethan and Eva mean more to me than anything, anything else in the world. They're both growing up so fast that that I would give all most anything if I could slow things down and keep them kids forever because I know one day I'm going to blink, and even though I don't them to be, they're not going to be there anymore. Time is going by too fast, it's working against me, and I'm not looking forward to the day when the nest Pepper and I have feathered for them is actually empty.
You on the other hand could not wait until I was gone. So much so you eagerly sent me off to boarding school when I was barely seven years old!!!
You want to know something else? I would never hurt them like you me. I'd walk through fire before I'd do something like what you did to me, to them. I'd cut off my own arms and legs before I went diving head first into a pool of acid. I'd do all of this if by doing it meant I could spare them from that kind of pain. "
"Well, I guess that's it then. There is nothing I can say that is going to mean anything to you is there?"
"No, there isn't, Dad. You know why? Because it's been like I've been trying to tell you this entire time and that all of this, is coming a little too late. It's too late, Howard! The only reason you care now is because you're dead, and I guess you think if you can make amends with me, it is somehow going to help you... wherever you are now when you're not here."
"No, that's not why I'm doing it, son. Besides, I didn't think you believed in the afterlife."
"I don't... or I didn't until I came to this place but--"
"But you're starting to change your mind about that, aren't you?"
"Not really. I mean I'm pretty sure this is a delusion, which is the by product of the fact I'm not breathing right now."
"Your brain might not be getting oxygen right now. Doesn't that worry you? Aha, it is worrying you!"
Of course it was worrying him because as Tony knew his brain getting no oxygen meant brain cells were being lost.
"Yeah, son, if they don't get you back soon, your mind might never work in the same way away as it did before this accident."
"And you're like that, wouldn't you? Because it would finally mean you'd finally be smarter than me. Sure you're still dead but hey at least you'd finally be able to win out in the brains department!"
"You really think I want to win over you no matter what the cost is to you?"
"Da.... da... what the he... why can't I finish two simple words?"
"Because while you're here, you're not allowed to swear."
Tony rolled his eyes, "Seriously, it's bad enough I'm here with you but now I can even say what I'm actually thinking? Okay, then I hope this gets by the censor. The answer to your question is, darn right you would."
"You're unbelievable."
"Like you have any room to talk, Howard!"
"Would you please stop calling me Howard?"
"No, since I can't use other, uh terms, I don't think that I will stop. So either you can get used to being called Howard by me or not. I don't care either way."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't!"
"Yes, you do!"
"No, I... you know what? I'm done! Until I go home from wherever here is, I think I'm just going to take a stroll around the garden. Maybe even go visit the grave of the man who was more like a father to me than you ever were, Howard!" Tony waved in a flippant way over his shoulder, and started walking in the direction he remembered his destination being location in.
"Tony! Tony!"
The younger man made a gesture but otherwise did not acknowledge him. He kept walking further and further away from the older man.
"Tony, come back here! Tony! Tony! !"
The old man was persistent, he'd give him that.
TONY "Come back here!"
Rolling his eyes, he turned around, and had opened his mouth to finally retort but couldn't because water had started to spew out of his mouth.