Chapter Text
Cruelty was a matter of perspective. Right? That was why, in Tony's pespective, what was happening to him was the most fucking cruelest trick the universe had ever played on him-
There was not the wave of a single sound around him yet everything felt too loud, silence buzzing like an army of wasps-
He was laying on his back, blinded by a crackling blue light above him. Distress screamed at his bones, solidifying them, and he was aware of every single drop of marrow in them-
Overwhelmed by a flashing pain, he opened his mouth before even realizing he was crying like a newborn-
The air tasted like concrete on his tongue, its heaviness scratching at the inside of his lungs and settling in his veins. Dust was waltzing all around him in a filthy cloud, and he was feeling every speck of it licking at his skin-
Sobbing, tears rolling down his cheeks, he turned to look at his arm, his right arm, which was literally fuming and looked like roasted meat-
What in the actual fuck-
Trembling from head to toe, spasms taking control of his entire body, he eventually felt strong enough to sit up after a while - minutes, hours, he had no fucking idea - but cried even more, whimpering for reasons he could not determine. Except maybe the fact that he was breathing and feeling alive when he definitely, absolutely quite fucking died-
He actually knew that, he just knew that - flashing light descending from the sky and all the usual dying in a movie crap, you know? Well, Tony knew that he had died. He also knew now that he was alive again. And it just-
He knewit, okay. Felt it. So why in Jarvis' virtual balls was he alive again?
He would have started to panic if it wasn't for the warm power that softly lit up somewhere in him, slowly giving him back his strength. It allowed him to fully feel his mind awakening, his brain functionning - thank god - and to take in his surroundings and finally be aware of the place he was in. Which clearly was: nowhere. Tony Stark often had ended up in nowhere, you'll say, but that was a first. The large room he sat at the center of was void of décor and made of huge walls. Half of it destroyed, stone fallen and scattered on the ground - hence the nasty ocean of grey dust.
Ignoring the black, damaged member still miraculously attached to his shoulder - and still fuming, oh christ -, Tony looked around. There truly was nothing, like in some kind of hall or castle ballroom? A whisper in his ear. A temple. Huh? Tony looked around again, there was no one. It was just him. And a whisper slithering between his flesh and his bones. He was insane, that was it. Back again just to be even more fucking insane-
He closed his eyes, breathed out, feeling the warmth in his heart soothing him again. His hand clawed at his chest as he looked down. No arc reactor, no nano-housing. No armor. And no clothes.
Ha.
Of course. Obviously.
He sighed, still tearing up from earlier, and the whisper began to tickle the back of his head. He ran his hand through his hair to whisk it away but it tickled back even more annoyingly. Groaning, Tony turned around on his ass, almost wishing there was somebody behind him that he could punch so the whisper would stop-
But he was as alone as ever. Well, not entirely. Since he was now facing three archaic thrones, just chairs of stone really, on top of a pyramid of stairs. We winced as the Hulk roared somewhere in his mind; No - Stairs ! Got it, buddy. The blue light, which was crackling and most probably dying, was eyeing Tony through a sad halo. Beneath it, three bodies were rotting on the floor. No life left in them, the whisper came back. Yeah, just like that? Tony could try to look for a pulse, maybe. No life left.
"How do you know?" he grumbled stubbornly trying to stand up in order to check the bodies.
Decapitated. At that, Tony jumped back and fell on his ass, yelping.
He crawled the furthest possible from the bodies, soon crying again.
Where the fuck did his tears come from anyway? He hadn't drunk a drop of water in-
How long? How long since the day of his death? He waited for the whisper to answer him, but nothing ever came. Ha! Not so know-it-all after all, huh? Expecting some kind of pinch somewhere, he only felt deep sadness. Time. The whisper then cooled off, sending shivers down Tony's spine, and grief suddenly crushed him. Sorrow so violent and deep that he whined and sobbed and teared up again-
What was happening to him? He couldn't breathe-
It was all too much, this hell of life and death and he, somehow, realized he knew everything about it-
About the universe-
The multiverse-
He knew, the knowledge of the begining and the end was there, in his heart, in his brain, in his bones-
What-
"Uh, hello? Hi-"
Terror washing over him as the sound of the voice hit his eardrums, Tony tried to flee, crawling on the dusty floor, he was going insane, he wanted to die again-
"No, no! Don't be scared! It's alright! It's alright-"
Damn right, it was! Hell no, it was a fucking joke, everything was so not alright! Tony had to go away, so fucking away-
"Stop, please! Oh god, I'm not that scary! You didn't even look at me, please, listen-"
Eyes clouded by despair and salty water, Tony sobbed when he got his back to a wall. He brought his knees to his chest and hugged himself, leaning against the cold stone. He wanted to disappear, to fucking snap his fingers again just to go back in time and stay dead-
Time, the whisper cried. Time.
Oh for the love of Yggdrasil, fucking stop whispering! Tony almost freezed at that, because what the hell was an egg-drazeeled?
"Okay, okay, take your time. You seem a bit in shock-"
"No shit!" Tony yelled without thinking, hysterics getting the better of him.
"Hey, I just wanna help you, okay-"
"Then stop talking!"
And surprisingly enough, the voice did. The whisper, too. His senses chilled out, tentatively, progressively, but they did. Soon, Tony felt something warm, similar to a hug, both around his heart and his skin. It was getting so quiet in the room and in his head, so nice. He focused on his breath, slowing it down, then his heart. The wires in his brain seemed to reconnect themselves on the right frequencies, with enough flow of power, yes, he was quite relieved to finally be able to think again. Oh wow, this was truly insane. Something was living inside of him. He totally was not alone up there.
And whatever that thing was, it was loud and messy yet structured and powerful. He felt the power rumbling in his chest, comparable to a reactor, yet expanding and sleeping at his fingertips, and in every inch of him.
Okay.
"Okay," he breathed out.
He opened his eyes and noticed a piece of brown clothing covering him. A suit jacket. Dirty, and quite old-fashioned if you asked him but he was not going to make a scene about that right now, was he? Carefully, he laid his eyes on the voice next to him. Which was in the shape of a man. Grey hair, mustache, curious nose. Kind eyes.
"You're right," Tony whispered. "You're not scary at all."
The man smiled so nicely that Tony almost cried again. Key word: almost. No more crying, okay? He was sensitive and emotional, and that was okay but even he had limits.
"I'm Mobius," the guy said, sitting next to him.
In the shape of a Mobius strip, inverted, please.
Nope, no crying.
"Tony," he responded instead, glad that the man wasn't extending his hand to him, because Tony was not feeling like touching anyone, anything-
"I know. The invicible Tony Stark, right?"
And that had him pausing. Did he know that guy?
"Should I be terrified of you?" Tony managed to ask, nerves still a bit edgy. After everything he had lived, everything he had gone through, in this moment he should have been the wariest bitch in the universe, yet fear had faded away and he felt incapable of being distrustful. The man literally smelled like kindness. And that was a weird scent to sniff.
"No, I told you, I just want to help. We have never met but you are quite a celebrity. A hero."
Tony hummed, refusing to think about it, about everyone-
Failed miserably. Where was everyone? What happened to them all? The galaxy, Earth, the Avengers? His family? Nebula, Happy, Rhodey, Peter. Pepper... Morgan? Jesus-
"Okay," Mobius said seriously. "I guess you're feeling a bit lost this moment. It's okay, I will give you all the answers I know. I promise. But we have a bit of a situation right now, and we need to get out of here. Okay?"
Tony nodded, gulping down his dark thoughts.
"Great," Mobius hissed, standing up in sore movements. "I see you're naked, and my suit is not gonna hide nor warm up everything, so."
The man winced, looking around them with a sense of fatality.
"What do you say about a dead space lizard's pants?"
Tony sighed, closing his eyes, and nodded again. He did not want to nod, but he totally craved clothes now that he was not the only living person in the room. He watched halfheartedly as Mobius crossed the huge room and walked over to the corpses laying on the stairs to the thrones. Who were these guys, anyway? Did Mobius kill them? No, the whisper said promptly. It never elaborated. Sighing again, Tony eyed his new buddy lifting a dead man's leg to get it out of his clothes and truly he had never seen something as disturbing. The talking raccoon friend of Blue Meanie was nothing next to that sight.
When Mobius came back, he was bringing pants, cape and shoes. Tony didn't care about looking ridiculous, he owned that, but what he did care about was hygiene, and that was not it.
"I know," Mobius looked pained to be handing that to him. "But it's better than exposing your ass bare in that kind of environment, trust me."
Once Mobius put the clothes near him, he turned around and let Tony get dressed.
"Do you need help?" he inquired politely.
"No," Tony grunted, getting on his feet and letting the jacket fall. "I'll be fine, thanks."
The pants were surprisingly soft, not unlike silk, but way too big so he tried to tie them better around his waist. When doing that, he noticed that his carbonized hand and arm could move. It looked like the arm of a mummy, it was so weird. But again, Tony had seen weirder. As long as it didn't fall out or hurt, it was okay. Right? The shoes also were large but he could work with that.
"What is this place?" Tony asked analyzing how he could put the huge space tunic thing on. It was a simple question, right? No big revelation needed, he just needed some kind of where and when to locate himself.
"A place that is no more," Mobius whispered softly. "The heart of the Time Variance Authority. An organization that claimed to protect the proper flow of time, under the direct orders of... these guys."
O-ookay? Complicated answer then. Tony could deal with it. Yeah. He blinked.
"And who are you?" he asked. "I mean, in all this?"
He came to stand next to the man, tucking the big shirt in his pants.
"A man who worked for them," Mobius confessed looking up at the huge hole in the ceiling. "And one of the men who burnt it to the ground."
He was smiling at Tony then, hands on his hips. Was this man crazy or-
"As I said, I will explain it better to you. But I could use your brain right now, so I'll give you more than key information, okay? You're a smart guy so I can go for a few details. Ready?"
Tony almost said something but truly, what was there to say now? He'd wait for a nice contextualization before anything.
"Alright," Mobius started, fully facing him now. "The TVA and those three maniacs were destroying lives, erasing realities and feeding on people's fake free will to gain power. You, me, everyone, were tricked into their game without even knowing it since freedom of choice was an illusion. Yeah, even you dying to save the universe. Yes. So me and some friends decided to end it. Now, timelines and the multiverse were supposed to be free. As simple as that. We worked hard, and lost people," Mobius' voice faltered as he kept going, "and it was supposed to work. But for some reason, it did not."
Okay, Tony was going to need to sit the fuck down again.
"Time just... lost it," Mobius was now shaking. "I lost my only friend and most precious ally in all this, he disappeared as soon as the TVA started collapsing and this temple and the Time Keepers were brought down. I don't knowwhere he is, I don't knowif he's still alive - even though that guy survives, that's kind of what he always does. But this place is not simply in ruins, it is being eaten by some kind of portals and creatures that I know nothing about. Everyone disappeared, matter is still disappearing around us, and-"
He got some vintage phone out of his pocket.
"-time doesn't exist anymore. I can't use my TemPad to create a door through the flow of time and escape."
Time, Tony's body was trembling and he fell abrupty to the ground. Time, it kept screaming and hurting within him. Time.
A thundering noise sharply hit the space around them as a gigantic ball of energy rushed to swallow the remaining walls and certainly Mobius and Tony too.
Time didn't exist anymore-
Time-
Time lost it-
Space lost it-
Reality in shambles-
Power sleeping-
And Mind screaming, whispering-
Soul, soul, soul. Soul was somewhere else, in somebody else-
"Run!" Mobius ordered seizing Tony's healthy hand to help him up and guide him to the closest exit as fast as possible.
His big heavy boots restrained Tony from running faster, which briefly made him feel like a clown, but everything else took shape so rapidly and vividly that the sensation of not being alone in his own body now drowned his capacity to think.
His legs followed after Mobius, never letting his hand go even when they had to climb over piles of rocks. He couldn't think, and that simple fact made him lose his breath again. He couldn't think, couldn't think of something to get out of here. He knew that he had every piece of information he needed within himself, that he could get them out of here because his body had evolved, it had died and it had been brought back to life - different, layered and so goddamn stronger, he knew it. But he didn't know how to use it, it felt more like it was using him.
He just wanted to run, yes, run back to a house near a lake, run back to the arms of a woman he loved, to a child-
Dead, the whisper stated. Erased.
Mobius was dragging him through walls and corridors and roofs, everything was being devoured by luminous globes and by portals. Tony couldn't think, not anymore, all he could do was feel and sense and suffer. The desperate cries of some dying matter; the burn of the globes tongues and teeth; the agonizing void and confusion of space because time didn't exist anymore-
Morgan didn't exist anymore-
No one. He was alone, the only survivor of it all when he had died for everyone else to survive and that just broke him.
He wanted to run back home.
Home.
Mobius was yelling at him; Tony didn't hear him though he felt the vibrations of the man's voice in the air. Mobius was shaking him; Tony didn't feel his hands on him but was aware of his smell of kindness bordering on terror now.
Thinking of home, Tony closed his eyes. The heat of a thousands suns swallowed him, it felt good, unlike snapping with the gauntlet on, it felt good and peaceful. He thought that the voracious ball of light that was destroying everything behind them had finally caught him, but when he opened his eyes again, he saw a wooden house, and a lake.
The air was thick with humidity, and it was so very quiet that Tony felt himself passing out, Mobius laying next to him in the grass being the last thing he saw.
The whisper was chanting.
Home, home, home.
________________
Gasping for air, Loki woke up abruptly. His green eyes quickly roamed over his surroundings, and once again all he witnessed was chaos. Somehow his, and somehow one he refused to enjoy. Above him, a purple moon was crashing down towards the planet he had landed on, meteors and debris suspended in space, for time had stopped.
He had done this. He was the one who had let the apocalypses enter the multiverse and he had offered it to them on a golden plate for them to have dinner.
Tears rolled down his face as he clenched his hands into fists.
No, Loki, Odin's disappointed voice echoed at the back of his mind.
It was him. His fault. Again.
All he had wanted was to free everyone, but Loki had destroyed-
He had annihilated the entire multiverse.