Tony blasted another of the walking zombies. Screw zombies. When he got home, he was banning every single media that mentioned or featured a zombie.

Zombies. Strictly speaking they weren't zombies. They were invaders from a parallel universe that Reed Richards had found. There were many times he appeared to be angry at someone else when in truth the person he was most angry with was himself. Of course the only one person he really let through to realize that was dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

He tried to force himself to concentrate at ripping the crap out of every single bloody zombie. They killed her. He stuck his cannon into one of the creatures, blasting it through the stomach, leaving it to burn to ashes.

Oh Tony. Don't be silly. The mistake was his as much as it was yours.

He jerked back, almost turning around to find the voice. Couldn't be her. Pepper was gone. He remembered burying her. The sun was obnoxiously sunny that day as though it was gloating him.

Tony slammed his fist into another creature's jaw, so hard that it sent it flying into another creature.

"Jarvis, memo. When we get home, we're burning every single fucking movie, video, book or comic on zombies."

"Would that be including the song Zombies on your mellow playlist, sir?" Jarvis asked.

"No. Leave it out."

"Would that be including your Zombie army shirt, sir?"

"Cut the sass Jarvis!" He snapped. Why was Jarvis being so sarcastic today? Tony gritted his teeth, burning the body of another creature. No Jarvis wasn't being particularly sarcastic, he was just being touchy.

"I apologize, sir. I was only following instructions."

They lapsed into a strange silence. He shot another of the things that had been targeting Capsicle version 2. He blasted another, feeling satisfaction of seeing the hole in its stomach. Tony buried the burning ache in his heart, throwing himself into killing all of them.

Somewhere to the right of him was Thanos with his superhuman strength and speed, ripping through the creatures liberated from Death as though they were made of paper.

Four years ago, if someone told him that he was going to be fighting side by side with Thanos, he would have laughed them in the face and checked them into a mental facility. Somehow even when it was still hadn't sunk in.

Thanos roared and ripped the head of doppelganger Wanda Maximoff, snatching the doppelganger Marvel twinkie toes or whatever her codename was.

He had seen the X-Men or rather the Ex-Men doppelgangers (pun wasn't lost on him) and watched Wolverine and Wanda burn through them. Tony would be damned if there was a doppelganger of him somewhere, he'd definitely did blast a hole through him.

Then finally, it seemed that the silence had gotten to the other Avengers who had grown used to Tony's rambling over the comms in mid battle.

"Somehow, I'm really glad Loki happened." Bucky deadpanned and Tony couldn't help but agree despite his reluctance to voice it out. The creation of smart bots had assisted in delaying the invasion of the Cancerverse and with the multitude of wars that Loki had started, communication between the realms were at an all-time night.

Thank you Foster.

There was a thank you Loki somewhere beneath his roaring anger but Tony wasn't going to acknowledge it. Loki certainly didn't deserve one, it was not as though he actually thanked anyone anyway.

"Yea. We should totally revive Reindeer games and let him have a go at those things."

"Do not speak of my brother that way." Thor muttered, blasting an extra strong blast of Lightning at the zombies.

"He did kill, how many did he kill super-assassin?"

"Seven million." Natasha replied.

"He was under the thrall of the Tesseract."

"Are we really going to have this argument here, Point break?" Tony ducked another of the flying zombies, in pursuit closely behind was several of his smart bots firing his new repulsors cannons, ones that disintegrated everything, zombie bodies in particular.

"Maybe if you were willing to keep an open mind-" Thor begun hotly.

"Mar-Vell!" Thanos roared, ending all arguments that was threatening to break out.

"Fuck. Guys. Guys!" Star-Lord muttered, drawing their attention to the head of the skirmish. The duo jumped back and forth in some intricate vindictive dance. "Thanos is fighting Mar-vell. Oh boy."

The fighting lulled to a stop as everyone began watching the showdown. It was really dumb to do so, Tony admitted. Emo assassin could have sniped him or he could have shot the Overlordy guy and ended this whole fiasco but they didn't.

"They wouldn't die that way," Vision told him even before Tony could suggest.

Considering how the things he killed were sort of climbing back to their feet. He really wasn't surprised.

"I should have brought popcorn." Tony commented.

He could almost hear the frown in Capsicle, wincing to how remarkably alike Steve's tone was to Pep's. "Tony."

A part of him bristled at the thought of comparing anyone to Pepper.

"Peps, hold on ok. Honey, we're reaching the med bay. Remember Helen? She's there waiting for us. Just a little bit more okay honey?"

He wasn't going to make it. Why didn't he bring his suit? He should have brought it. He felt the weight of her blood hardening around his arms. Where was Steve? Steve could run faster.

"Steve!" he half-sobbed. "Steve!"

"Peps, please."

He cradled her head, her body was barely warm now. He held her hand against his cheek, not caring for the tears that streamed down his face. Shouldn't have fixed the extremis. Should have left it there.

"Don't leave me-"

Tony jolted out of his memories as he watched Thanos beg Mar-Vell to grant him death. "What the fuck! Did he just screw us over?" Tony swore and fired shots at Mar-Vell. It felt like time slowed down as he watched Mar-Vell blast a hole through Thanos. Mar-Vell smirked, deflecting his shot.

"Did you really think you can kill me?" Mar-Vell asked. "Kneel and submit to us, you worthless dying creatures." He stepped over the supine form of Thanos, stepping slowly towards them.

He should have run like what Jarvis told him or what every other instinct told him to, but for some reason, all intelligence and instinct fled him.

Pepper!

The heat ripped through his heart. Tony heard Legolas calling out for him and probably Stars and Stripes too and as he struggled to take a breath to tell them to take a chill pill, Tony noticed the multitude of innumerable stars in the sky, pulsating and almost welcoming. His body was heavy and dozens of thoughts screamed at him, to run, to fight, to hold on. A brush of warmth on his body, a brush on his face, noises that sounded like he was underwater.

He opened his mouth, feeling like he was drowning as his lungs stuttered beneath his ribs.

What was he going to say? He couldn't remember only that his body was no longer heavy, it was light and free from pain. His heart that ached with the death from Coulson and then Pepper didn't anymore, like the heart had forgotten the need to beat.

Tony struggled to hold onto the memories of Pepper.

Her strawberry blond hair sprawled over the sheets. Her wistful sigh when she caught him up to his usual shenanigans. The way she called his name when she was mad at him then sigh with a frown, but under the frown was a smile.

The way her hand felt against his cheek as she lay bleeding in his arms.

A strange peace sat in him as he became aware of the tree that he was sitting under. All his struggles before he arrived here seemed so trivial now.

Tony stepped to the tree with a strange urge to touch its immense trunk. The branches seemed to spread out forever into the space. How far did the roots go? He looked down only to realize that he was no longer wearing the suit.

Was this death? He hoped he wasn't going to be that horrible version of himself in that universe. Tony regretted agreeing to assist the Guardians of twinkly lights. He died helping them, though that wasn't what he regretted. With his agreement to assist, Pepper had become a bystander. Her blood was on his hands. They had killed her because she was important to him.

He heaved a loud sigh, placing a hand on the tree. He felt the grooves of the bark under the skin of his fingers. There was a figure on his right – Loki. He recognized the bugger anywhere.

Taller than what Tony remembered him to be but still dressed with the funny gold horns and the green cape; Loki was standing beside him, touching the same tree. He turned and tilted his face at him with furrowed eyebrows.

"Mortal. What brings you to the tree of Life?" He asked politely.

So politely that it startled Tony. "Oh god. Even in death, I'm not going to be free from you am I?" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "You know if and when I meet a genie that granted me three wishes, I was pretty sure haunting you after death wasn't going to be one of them."

Loki furrowed his eyebrows even more than what Tony thought was humanly possible. Wait. Loki was an Asgardian. Yep, not human.

"I apologize. I have not met you before. This is the ritual of Sages, you should not be here." He pulled his hand out towards him and waved it at him before taking a step back.

Rude.

"But you are not really here," Loki pursed his lips. "Or perhaps I am not here. How have you come to arrive here?"

"I don't know. Friend of yours sort of decided to be a fucking asshole and backstab us. Then Energy captain zombie with long teeth decided that I'd be the next to die. Then I died and tree here appeared. Where are we anyway? You say Tree of Life. Do you mean Yggdrasil?" Tony motioned wildly at the tree.

Loki seemed terrified or perhaps extremely baffled by his rant.

"I had a bad day ok," Tony crossed his arms, slumping against the tree. More like bad year. "We were defending things that decided to invade in your death and well apparently they don't die."

It was strange. He should have been very angry at Loki. He had spent countless of hours ranting about him and yet here, he felt a certain odd calmness. Tony shut his eyes tightly, had to be the tree fucking with him. He twitched, trying to muster the anger that he had felt for the asgardian.

Nope. Nada. The tree must be a no rage zone, that or he couldn't care less in death. Oh well.

He crossed his arms, watching the Asgardian paced back and forth with that very deep furrow on his brows.

"Did you win?" He asked quietly, stopping in front of Tony.

There was a strange pain in the Asgardian and a very human attribute that Tony would have never attached to Loki.

He shrugged. "Died before I could find out." Tony stuck his hands in his pockets, casting a glance around him. The mist that surrounded the tree and them was thick that it could have been a solid wall had it not been for the wisps that tendril at his boots.

"Were you winning?" Loki asked. There was a very persistent look on his face that Tony really didn't know how to react to.

"Probably. Until your dickhead friend decided to be… well an asshole. So like, is there a way of going home or did I get my so-not last wish granted and haunting you for the rest of whatever life you have?"

"Haunting me?" He raised an eyebrow then pinched his nose bridge.

The look on the Asgardian face was definitely very human. Tony had always considered Loki to be less human than anything considering that the other Asgardians he met was more expressive.

Before Tony could explain, Loki sank to the ground and placed his scepter beside him. "So I decided to do the right thing after all."

Loki palmed his face.

Do the right thing?

Anger roared in his ears, swamping all other thoughts out. "Do the right thing?" Tony tersely spat out. "Do you know how many people died because of you? How the fuck is that doing the right thing?"

He smiled wanly at him. "But without my interference, you would have stood no chance at all." A war of emotions flittered across the Asgardian's face, emotions that Tony didn't understand or thought that asgardian would ever express. He had only seen the sneer and mocking smirk whenever Point Break had asked then begged Reindeer to stop. Here, he showed guilt and humility.

He was doing a very good imitation of a goldfish before the Asgardian took pity on him.

"Yggdrasil selected me to be her champion and she showed me the future. I have choices." Loki explained and clenched his knees. Tony could see the white of bone on his knuckles. "To be a good man and damn every one or to be an evil man and save all that I could."

"You could have told someone about it!"

Loki merely smiled. "I assumed I would have thought of it but as you can see, the best decision was still to become Yggdrasil's champion and be a villain to save them all."

Tony stared at the Asgardian in disbelief. "You don't really think that you were some hero that you needed to be worshipped do you? Seven million, Loki. Seven fucking million people." He pulled the Asgardian by the collar, breathing heavily into his face.

"Then what did you do?"

"I built my bots to destroy you over and over again. That's what I did."

Loki smiled. "Did they help?"

"Oh they crushed you alright. Burnt you. Why the fuck are you still alive anyway? I killed you, made sure you were bloody dead too."

Loki tugged his cape collar from his grip. "You're not really here. The tree brought you here to show me what the future might be."

"And it picked me? Boy, I feel lucky."

The smart bots that he had made to defeat Loki had been the whole reason why Earth had not been initially overrun. Tony clutched his chest, hand grazing on the bark as he tried to stop himself from falling to his ass. He was hyperventilating, he knew that. He had had it frequently after Pepper died.

It's a bloody coincidence that's what it was. Loki was dead. This is some fucking mind trick he was playing with him. Tony felt bad for teasing Clint all this time now. If this was how mind control felt, he shouldn't have doubted on Clint's control. All this felt real.

He dug into the tree. Not real. Just a dream.

As he glanced back up the tree, Tony realized that Loki had disappeared. Coulson was there this time.

"Agent?"

The man turned to him with a frown. "Stark? What are you doing here?"

"Eh? I died." He shrugged.

"Died? Please tell me you won." He pinched his nose bridge.

"Won what? I won a lot of things. I won the grand pixar for technology and-" Tony faltered, suddenly catching on what Coulson had been referring to. "You knew? You knew about this champion shit thing? You know and you didn't tell us?"

Coulson shrugged. "Loki apologized for killing me you know."

"And that makes it alright?" Tony slammed a fist on the tree. "He killed you! How can an apology make anything alright?"

"I had a dream about Yggdrasil the night before Loki visited me. This very tree. Showed me several things, was really interesting." Coulson touched the bark lightly.

"You know-"

"It could have been from Loki right? But you've been here." Coulson smiled blandly at him. "Does it feel like it could be a lie?"

Tony stared back up at the tree. There smell of grass, leaves, nature, the flare of stars beating against the blanket of twilight. It was a tree, the tree but if Tony closed his eyes, he could feel the sway of the air caressing the grass just beyond his senses and the soft forest murmuring in the wind.

He wouldn't admit it and Coulson knew, he was right. There was no way this could feel like a lie.

"To live longer, only for more people to die or to die to let others live. I made my choice Tony."

He spun his head around so fast that he almost got whiplash. Coulson never called him Tony, it was their thing. Coulson gripped his shoulder, his face still patently Coulson's emotionless emotional face.

Tony heard the smile in his voice, gentle and effusively patient. "We are only pebbles in the road of destiny. No regrets Stark-"

And everything dulled out.

"Don't try to get up Tony," Steve was pressing him down onto the back. Turning his head slightly, Tony stared at Steve. "What happened?"

"You died Tony."

"Heimdall reported that you passed through the leaves of Yggdrasil"

"The iggy iggy tree?" Tony stared blearily at Thor.

"Heimdall saw you pass through the leaves of Yggdrasil and informed me to know that you were in good hands. I was gladden but saddened at the news. That you were a great enough warrior to pass through the leaves of Yggdrasil-" His cheerful expression belying the strain in his voice as Thor attempted to finish his sentence.

"Tree what tree?" He was too tired for Thor's nonsensically shakespearean speech. "Oh yea. I had helluva dream too. Lots of girls chasing after me to sleep with them." Tony mumbled, not awake enough for this. Must be something in the cocktail that gave him.

"Do you ever take anything seriously?" Tony didn't need to watch Steve to hear the roll of eyes. Besides, that was pretty much his trademark comment now.

"Nope." He grinned sleepily, popping the P. Steve's lips twitched in response.

"Sooooo I died.. but I'm alive again?"

"Stark, the GH-325 brought you back. You shouldn't move yet. Don't worry, we won."

"Yea man. Just sleep it off. Thanos apparently died to summon Death who killed the shit out of them," Clint chirped from the other side of the bed.

"We won?" He gasped and did a little arm wavy cheering thing. "Yaaaay. I'm taking a week's vacation after this."

"More like three weeks of prescribed rest."

"You got to be kidding me," he groaned, slumping back into the pillow.

Just a hell of a dream, right?

Tony breathed with relief before falling back to sleep.

The coat.

Tony woke up with a start.

The coat. The stitches in the coat.

He flailed, half consciously calling for Thor. "Thor- The coat-" he gasped in a raspy voice, grabbing Thor when he finally arrived.

"Please stay down." Thor took the seat that someone had just vacated.

"Thor. The coat." He clenched Thor's large forearm.

The coat had been a source of curiosity. All the tiny marks found in the inner of the coat, what were they for? The majority of the Avengers had agreed it was probably victory marks. Thor had never said anything about it.

"What coat? This?" He placed Pepper's last worn coat into his arms.

Tony shook, feeling a sharp pain in the back of his head. "Loki's coat. The marks. They're not victory marks."

Thor shook his head with a rueful twitch of his lips. "I know. My brother was crazy and-"

"No!" Tony yelled, shooting upright and ignoring all them telling him to lie down. "No! He wasn't!"

"Tony. You're acting really crazy." Steve said, placating pressed him back to the bed. "Loki killed millions of people. You remember that right?" He motioned to Bruce and before Tony could react, there was the sharp prick on his neck.

Tony shook his head, his hand still gripping Thor's. "He saved all the zillions too. The smart bots. He was Yggdrasil's champion. He became a villain to save us." He murmured, letting Thor catch him as he fell asleep.