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When Tony comes to, he’s greeted by the Avengers. Has to blink. All of the Avengers, Iron Man included, and it’s disorienting, for a second, looking at his own face, until he can swing his mind around to accept it, to realize…
“I’m sorry,” He says, smiling, though they can’t see it. “I don’t think I belong here.”
—-
They accept him, easy enough. Shows them his identicard out of the compartment on his hip, lets the other Iron Man look him over.
He tells them all why he’s here — he doesn’t know, he was in a fight, and then—
He tells him he wants no trouble, and just wants to get home. They nod at that — Steve the most emphatically, though they all seem empathetic to his plight.
“So,” He says, as soon as he’s finished telling his story, and they’ve all quietly agreed that it’s likely that he’s from another world, instead of another time. He doesn’t remember this, nor does the other iron man, and the dates match up. “Would I be able to speak to Tony Stark, about—“
He cuts himself off, because everyone’s gone still, dead quiet, the tension cranking up in the room like a ratchet as soon as he’d spoken his own name. Oh, no, he hopes he hasn’t shown up in a world where something happened that made the team distrust him, or hate him (though if that were the case, why would they still be using the mansion—)
“I… seem to have said something wrong.”
Iron Man is the one who steps forwards, as the others send weird, sad looks at each other. “Tony Stark is dead.” He says, voice quiet, almost somber, even through the voice modulators. And it’s… it’s a shock, to hear it. Not that he hadn’t considered it, faking his own death, doing away with the hassle of having to be two people at once. But he never went through with it, never considered it as more than a thought. A What-if.
It’s a shock that this version of him actually did it.
The other Iron Man is still looking at him, Tony knows this, even as he can’t see his eyes, can feel his gaze, somehow, like it’s tangible. “About a year and a half ago.” He says, pauses. “Heart attack.”
Well, then. Tony resists the urge to press his armoured hand to his chest, can’t hear anything but the pounding of his own heart for a second, two. “I’m sorry.” He says, “For your loss.”
The other Iron Man tips his head, as Janet looks towards Steve, and then to him. “We didn’t know him.” She says, “Well, I met him, once or twice, but… I never knew him well. He died before the team formed, it’s thanks to Iron Man that we get to use this mansion.”
Of course it is, Tony thinks, doesn’t voice. He wonders if anyone else knows about the lie, wonders if his counterpart can even take off his armour. If he can only exist like a ghost, passing through the mansion when no one else can see him. “Still.” He says, pauses. “Is there a laboratory? I’d still like to try to recreate the thing that brought me here, even without outside help.”
“I’ll take you.” Iron Man says, takes a step forwards. “Maybe I can assist, as well.”
—
The workshop is familiar, at least. Tony recognizes how he organizes his workspace, can see the extension cord coiled up next to the couch. It reminds him that his batteries are running a little low, and now, at least, they have some privacy. “Do you mind..?” He said, gestures over at the cord. Iron Man nods at him, and Tony steps over to the couch, sits down. He doesn’t want to remove all of the armour, though he does, still, need to remove at least the outer chest plate in order to plug himself in.
So he reaches up, and pulls the helmet off, hasn’t even put it beside himself when he hears a small, wounded noise from across the room.
When he looks up, Iron Man is staring at him, dead still, more motionless than Tony knows how to be, even within the confines of the armour.
Oh, God, he thinks, can he not take it off? Is he sick?
“Are you…” He says, curls his fingers tighter around the helmet, feeling like he should put it right back on. “I’m sorry, I thought, you know, it’d be fine, since it’s just us, and you…” He laughs a little, gestures with one hand, more nervous than actually amused, “Well, already know who I am. We are. I can… put it back on, if—“
“You’re alive?” Iron Man says, seemingly ignoring everything that had just come out of Tony’s mouth, and his tone is… Tony’s never heard anything like that, out of the voice modulator. It sounds like something’s gone wrong, for all that he’s still perfectly understandable.
He sounds broken.
“I—“ Tony says, cuts himself off. He doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t know how to react, not beyond yes, obviously, aren’t you? Aren’t you me? Aren’t you alive?
It’s a long moment, caught in the impossibility of the situation, of the question, before he realizes. Before the thing-not-said, except, no, they told him, this Iron Man told him.
Tony Stark is dead.
“You’re.” Tony says, sets the helmet down onto his lap. He’s suddenly sure that if he could see this Iron Man’s eyes, they’d be brown. “You’re not me. Are you.”
“No.” Iron Man says, pauses, still frozen, for a long moment. And then he, too, reaches up for the helmet, and pulls, and—
There’s nothing under the helmet. There’s a gap, where the pilot’s neck should be, and it seems like the world is moving in slow-motion as Iron Man lifts the helmet fully off, as more and more nothing is revealed.
He was wrong about the eyes, he was wrong about who was under the mask. It isn’t Happy, or Rhodey, as he’d thought.
It’s just nothing.
The armour holds the helmet in front of it’s chest. It doesn’t have a head, It doesn’t have a body, there’s no pilot, just a hole, and Tony can’t help but stare.
Just as quickly, the armour puts the helmet back, and the illusion, the feeling of walking over his own grave, fades. Not gone, never gone.
“Tony Stark made me.” He says, tone quiet. Tony can’t help but search for any evidence for a human voice underneath the synth tones. “When he realized he was dying. So that I could be Iron Man. In his place.”
Heart attack. Tony remembers. He remembers thinking, when they’d told him, that it made sense. Of course, if he were going to fake his death, he’d use the thing that was already halfway to killing him, most of the time. He remembers thinking it was ironic.
And now he knows that the Tony Stark who had belonged to this world is dead, and he’s pretty sure…
He’s pretty sure that hadn’t been a lie. This time, he can’t catch the urge, presses his hadn’t to his chest like that’s going to help him.
And still, he has to ask. Has to know. “You said… heart attack.”
“Yes.” Iron Man says. “He… he was already dying.” He says, voice quick, “There wasn’t anything anyone could do. No one could save him. But…”
There’s a noise, harsh static. An angry, mournful sigh, parsed through code and speakers. Tony wonders where the AI picked that up, if it’s a habit he acquired intentionally, a purposeful bit of code trying to make himself seem more human than he is, if it’s something left over from the other Tony Stark, or if it’s unintentional. If it’s a behaviour like any human one: a tell he isn’t realizing he’s putting out.
“I was almost complete.” He says. “I just. I needed a power source. The only thing.”
Oh, god. “He gave you the chestplate.” Tony finishes, voice a whisper.
“I still have it.” Iron Man says, voice just as low, raises one gauntlet to tap his chest, directly over where the heart of the pilot would rest, tips his head up, looks at Tony, the weight of his gaze a physical presence. “I couldn’t save him, I wasn’t supposed to, but— I still tried. I still had to try, and I thought— I thought it was the only way, but you’re here—“
“Different universes.” Tony says. His voice catches in his throat. He can’t imagine, god, he can’t imagine. For either of them. For himself, taking off the chestplate, willingly, knowing it was going to be the last time. He knows the pain of it. He knows how hard it must’ve been. And for Iron Man, watching it, knowing what was going to happen to his creator, knowing his creator was doing it to himself, for him. “You can’t— it isn’t your fault.” He knows that, he knows. I tried, Iron Man had said, and Tony knows the pain in his voice, knows it too well not to believe it. “You can’t know anything would have gone differently. Just because I’m here—“
“Does mean that you survived. At least once.” Iron Man cuts him off. “It means it’s possible. It means that... maybe, maybe if he hadn’t made me—“
Iron Man cuts himself off, quick, snappish. He sounds angry. He sounds like he’s in pain. Mostly, he just sounds distraught.
“You can’t know that.” Tony says, careful. He knows he doesn’t sound like he means what he’s saying. He knows he can’t mean what he’s saying, not when he knows everything this AI is feeling all too well. He’s thought the same, more times than he can count. What if, what if, what if. What if it had been me instead. “You can’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t given you the chestplate. If he hadn’t died then, maybe… maybe he just dies. Maybe he just dies, but you don’t exist, and Iron Man doesn’t exist. And that…” Tony has to swallow, “That’s worse. I think that would be worse.”
“I… know.” Iron Man says. “Over everything else. He wanted Iron Man to survive. I think…” He pauses. “At the end. I don’t think he cared about anything else.”
Tony can only nod. He understands the impulse, understands that need. Iron Man is the best thing he’s ever done, the best thing he’s ever been. He thinks — no, he knows — that if he were in the same position the Tony Stark of this world had been in he’d do the exact same damn thing.
He’d kill himself for Iron Man, too.
Tony takes a breath, long, slow. His heart’s going too fast, tripping a little, like a kid sprinting to the bus. He needs to calm down, he needs to think, make sense of all of this around the spectre of his own death. Another breath, held, until he can feel himself loose some of the tension that had been locking up his spine. “I am sorry.” He says, at last, looks up to look the armour in the eyes — or, as close to them as he guesses the armour has. “But I can’t say I’d do it any different.”
Iron Man ducks his head. Tony wonders if he can cry, if he can do anything like it. He looks, then, like he wants to. “I know,” He says.
His shoulders move, half a shrug, maybe.
“I know.”