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“So, that’s it? We won? Ugly me is done-so?” Tony asked into the silence, looking around where the group of them stood in what remained of one of the arenas that dominated fucked-up Oz, as Tony kept calling it in his head. Dust was literally still settling, and everyone looked a bit shell-shocked, like they couldn’t believe their insane plan had actually worked.
There was the Norse god, two guys dressed like spider-people, a magician, the not-so-jolly-green giant, a blue furry, a red-headed witch, a giant rock dude, a talking raccoon, a guy in a red suit who kept calling him Robert for some reason and insisting he was just here for the “marvel bag”, whatever the hell that was, Stretch Armstrong, another redhead who could read minds and was far too judgmental in Tony’s opinion, some surly dude with metal claws, Robin Hood, and a bunch of other Spirit Halloween rejects. Tony hadn’t bothered to learn too many names.
“Yeah,” Captain America replied. “Yeah, Tony, we won.” He paused a moment, then added, half under his breath, “Together.”
Oh, and Captain America was here, too. Tony was, in his personal opinion, being very normal about that fact.
“Yay, go us, good job team,” Tony said, lifting his hands in the air and waving them a bit, then quickly lowering them as the suit made that mechanical whine, like it was powering up. “Okay, well, this was…” he broke off and shook his head. “You know, I’m trying to be quippy here, but God, I could really use a drink right now. I’m not,” he emphasized, shooting Captain America an annoyed look, “because nothing sobers you up like discovering there’s a multiverse controlled by some kind of evil-you who left you alone, of all the versions of himself, because you literally just suck that much.”
“You don’t suck, Tony,” Captain America told him, sighing a bit as he hefted his shield.
“The Captain speaks the truth, Stark,” Thor assured him, clapping a hand on Tony’s metal-encased shoulder and giving it a quick shake. “Truly, we could not have triumphed without you.”
“He’s right, Tony,” Captain America said. A shadow flickered across his face, then was gone. “We couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you. I know this was a lot to ask.”
“You didn’t exactly give me much choice, if I remember correctly,” Tony reminded him. Three days ago, Tony had been asleep in bed after a delightful evening entertaining, well, several friends, only to be abruptly jolted from his sleep to find a star-shaped light of some kind opened next to his bed, an annoyed looking young girl in a jean jacket standing over him and someone cosplaying Captain America kept insisting that he had to come help save the universe from, well, himself. Sort of.
It was complicated.
Admittedly, waking up in a half-drunk stupor to a ridiculously good looking guy insisting they needed his help to save the multiverse was one of the weirder moments of his life. No one could be expected to react well to that.
Still, he probably shouldn’t have grabbed the guy’s ass. Definitely not twice.
When he’d sobered up, he found himself on a completely different world, where a ragtag team of heroes from different universes were trying to stop some masked dude who set himself up as a god. Apparently, there was a multiverse, which, okay, that made sense, sure, but what didn’t make sense was that throughout this multiverse, there were all these different versions of him, Tony Stark, who became some kind of hero. These versions, they all built an arc reactor, that giant science project of his dad’s they had mothballed years ago, and put it in their chest. Which was insane. Right? Right. Of course, it was insane.
Except it worked, apparently, and they all went and built suits of armor around the reactor and became heroes. Fucking superheroes. Iron Man, who became an Avenger (note to self: not a band), saved the whole God-damned universe, at least one version of it. And then there was this asshole, Victor Von Doom--which, okay, if that’s your name, evil, megalomaniacal despot is probably one of the few jobs you can get, to be fair--who was also some version of Tony, who had destroyed the multiverse and eliminated all the Tony Starks in it.
Except for him. Because he was absolutely zero threat. Not even worth being eliminated. Great, go him. Mediocrity for the win.
At least, it was working for him right up until Captain God-damned America crashed Tony's orgy and told him he had to come help stop his evil doppelganger. Oh, and fly a metal suit. Because the multiverse needed him.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Captain America said. “America, she’ll put you back in your universe, just like I promised.”
“And then what?” Tony asked, looking around. “I just, what? Go back to my life?”
“Well, yeah,” Captain America said. “You get to go back to your life. We all do, now. Thanks to you.”
“I didn’t do anything. She did stuff,” Tony corrected him, pointing at the red-headed witch. “He did stuff. You did stuff. I just…showed up.”
“You reminded him of what he could have been. Who he could have been. It was the perfect distraction, Tony,” Captain America said. “His mask slipped long enough that everyone could see, he wasn’t a god. He wasn’t a hero. He was just a man. A man who hadn’t even built his power, he had taken--collected--it from others. That moment was enough to snap Franklin out of whatever hold Doom had on him, make him stop channeling power to Doom.That leveled the playing field. That was all we needed, but it wouldn’t have worked. Not without you.”
“Well, now you’re just being flirty,” Tony grimaced. “Seriously, though, you just toss me back? That’s it? I’m just supposed to toddle back into my own universe, just like that, huh? Uh-uh. Nope. Not happening. There’s a whole multiverse out here! There are time cops! Magic is real, I’m pretty sure that tree is going through some kind of puberty, which is all kinds of disturbing, and I was a hero in a bunch of universes, but not mine. Not mine, because I stayed an extra day in Vegas fifteen years ago, and so in mine, I’m just--just--.a--”
“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Captain America suggested, his voice oddly soft and full of an emotion that Tony couldn’t quite name. “Tony, we asked for your help, and you came. The second you knew you there was a chance, however small, that you could make a difference, you walked through a portal to another world. I won’t say no questions asked, because you had…a lot…of questions. Understandably,” he said quickly. “But you came.”
“To be fair, when a hot blond guy drags me out of bed, I usually don’t argue,” Tony replied.
Captain America rolled his eyes.
“Tony, I’ve known two versions of you, and both have been heroes. I believe you can do anything you put your mind to. This…place, it’s maybe the most horrible proof of that. So, the question is, what do you do now?” Captain America said, closing the few steps between them while the others looked on. “America, send him back.”
“I’m keeping the suit,” Tony said.
“Fair enough,” Captain America agreed.
“My world may need protecting, too, you know,” Tony continued. “We could use, you know, some kind of, like, team thing. Probably.”
Captain America looked over at him. In front of them, the girl in the jean jacket slammed her arms together and a star-shaped portal blazed out in front of her. Through it, Tony could see his bedroom, still a disaster from a few days ago. Apparently, no one had come to check on him. Who would, though? He blinked, and glanced over at the man beside him.
“So, you’re just like, doing time as a Capsicle right now?” Tony asked, not for the first time. “In my world, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Captain America said, a small smile playing on his lips. “I guess I am.”
“Probably, someone should go dig you out, huh?” Tony suggested. “Someone who has, I don’t know, pretty much unlimited resources and a knack for finding,” he glanced at Captain America, as if considering.
“Hot blonds?” Captain America said, sounding somewhere between amused and…well, Tony would have said wistful if that made any sense.
“Exactly,” Tony said, snapping his now-metal fingers together (still weird, he was adjusting, though) and pointing, as if the thought had just occurred to him.
It had not.
“I’d probably appreciate that,” Captain America replied, looking over at Tony. He started to say something, bit it off and looked away, scanning what was left of the arena before looking back at Tony. “I think I’d really like to meet you, Tony. In your universe. I think, that could be really…really something.”
“Alright, well, this has been fun,” Tony announced, slowly turning in a circle and giving the exhausted crowd who was watching their exchange a small wave. “Let’s do this again…never. Okay, so I just--I just walk back through, huh? Just walk back and--”
“Go be a hero, Tony,” Captain America said. “It’s who you are.”
“I was going to say, ‘go find you,’” Tony reminded him.
Captain America dropped his gaze, then looked back up at Tony and smiled, this one a wide, genuine smile that made whatever weight he carried seem to lift with a disarming suddenness. “Yeah. Yeah, that too.”