ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD! Don't read it if you haven't seen the movie yet because I kinda summarised the plot at one point, so beware, you've been warned! Other than that, here's another story because so many people still follow it and I feel bad for never updating. But on the plus side I have a few half-written so there's that!

"Yeah. Yeah, I know exactly what that is," Pepper says, eyes sadly staring at the hologram for a few seconds before she looks away, closing her eyes.

She's one of three people in the room, and the other two don't understand why she looks so upset, until Rhodey finally asks, "well, what is it?"

She doesn't answer straight away, just sighs with a flash of a smile that people give when they're trying to avoid actually looking sad. "Tony was—he was working on that in…God—" she laughs humorlessly, "—years ago."

"How many years?"

"I don't—" she shrugs, "Morgan was…" she wanders off again as she thinks, "and there was New Years which he spent blowing fireworks in the garden," she laughs at the memory. "2021. January. I don't know what happened to it after that. He never talked about it again."

"This is bad."

"Tell me about it."

"But there's a fix. We still have a few of the tubes left," he says, looking to Pepper.

Peter watches as her face turns from confusion, to realization and finally to, what looks like, rejection. "No."

Rhodey sighs, leaning across the table, "Pep, we—"

"Who'll even go? I can't risk anything going wrong, you are about to start a family, I'm not—this isn't a discussion. If Tony was here, he'd agree," she says.

"I can go," Peter offers. She didn't say his name. "And if Mr Stark was here, this wouldn't even be happening."

Her face says otherwise, because she glares at him like he's crazy. "You're not going anywhere."

Peter protests, scoffing lightly and leaning forwards, "I can do it. Mr Rhodes said it wasn't even that hard. It's literally a button."

"Yeah, and what happens next? You come out and you're seventy? I'm not putting May through that, I'm not putting myself through that," she says, clear-cut and shutting him out.

Peter shakes his head, "please. Let me do this. I know I can do it. It's not like I'll stay there for the rest of my life."

"I don't care what you can do. It's not up for discussion," she dismisses like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

He still doesn't give up. "It's not dangerous. Pretty sure everyone here's had their turn at doing it."

"It's not pass the parcel, Peter. You're gonna go back to a time where there wasn't another you there," she says, "and what if you feel like not leaving?"

"I'll be back in five seconds."

"I want you back in five seconds, not—not a twenty-five year old or—or worse."

"Worse than a twenty-five year old?"

She shoots him a glare, "I'm not joking, Peter."

"Sorry, neither am I. But I can do this."

"That includes talking to—" she doesn't say his name, "—you can't do anything to change it."

"Well," Rhodey interjects, "it's not like he'll be changing anything here."

Pepper shoots him a look, "I'm seriously not the only person who disagrees," she says incredulously.

Rhodey narrows his eyes, "even if he does change something, which I don't recommend, it's not gonna change our future. If he helps—"

"He can mess up another timeline."

"No, he can help. Look, Tony does all the—" he throws his hands in the air to mimic an explosion, "—time travelly stuff after Scott comes back in 2023. If Peter's there to tell him to do it before, he can still do it. Bring Scott back earlier. Don't send Nebula up there. It works out."

"Or we can leave things alone and just—"

"Pepper," Rhodey interrupts, "there's another you living with him in the past and that Pepper is just as human as you are. Why not kill two birds with one stone?"

She looks at him hesitantly, "I know there's another me. That's the point because that's past us. We lost him, and I know it hurt, but I don't want to meddle in things and get even more people killed. Because I'm there. All of us...are there. You-" she points to Peter, "-exist because he doesn't. How do we know what you say won't change things?"

Rhodey sighs, "isn't that the point, though? We don't know."

"Which is why we shouldn't."

"It's one timeline," Rhodey says, shrugging, "I don't think what we do in it or don't do in it is going to be significantly impactful on anyone."

Pepper turns to Peter, "you go. You just don't meddle. You come right back and never talk to anyone."

Rhodey doesn't say anything, just keeps his head down. "Sounds about right."

He gets a strange feeling in his chest, almost the same as he does when he that nightmare. He hasn't seen Mr Stark in five years, and he wonders whether the fight even counts, because it really shouldn't. They didn't get a chance to talk or meet. And that's ten years since they had an actual conversation.

"—that hard. The brush is literally for that purpose, Tony."

"And I used the brush."

Pepper lifts a baby bottle in the air, raising her brows, "see those stains? You didn't use the brush," she says, placing it back into the sink. She shakes her head, walking off as Tony follows.

"Pep, babies have strong immune systems!" He calls, and their voices jumble into one as they disappear up the stairs.

He waits until he can't hear anyone, and then steps out, looking around the room. The things are all the same, even the holotable, which sits proudly in the middle of the room by the sofa.

It's Friday he has to worry about, but she doesn't seem to mind him wandering around the house like a total creepy stranger.

He says the code he's memorized a bajillion times in his head aloud, albeit quietly, and the specs open up. He reaches to swipe through. His heart races like he's doing something completely wrong. Which arguably, he is. He's breaking into someone's home.

"Step away, Danny Ocean," a voice says from behind, and he freezes. Mr Stark, who, according to Pepper, is supposed to be very, very much asleep or arguing upstairs right now. "Quickly," he says coldly, "I got a kid in here. Won't hesitate to shoot."

He'd talk, but he knows, even though he might not be ruining his own future, he's ruining one of them, somewhere. He reaches for the bracelet to zap back to his time, and finds both hands quickly restrained by two very strong metal hands.

Tony steps around the table, frowning and doing a serious double-take as he stares. The flying metal hands keep their grip, and Peter can't keep a straight face looking at his mentor so close, after so long.

"Hey, Mr Stark," he says.

Mr Stark squints, as if he can't believe his eyes, which is a fair assessment. "Who—where are you from?" He asks, coming closer and closer until he's standing a few feet apart. "Who are you?"

"Peter," he smiles for a second, "not from here," he answers, "wanna, uh—" he gestures to his wrists with his head, "let me go?"

"Sick joke, buddy," Tony says, trying to keep a straight face, "ever think you could use all the brains for something good instead of trying scare people?" He asks, observing his face closely. "You don't even look like him. Bad paint job."

Peter breathes in, "I'm-I'm from a few years in the future. I look older, not different."

"Right," Tony says, making it clear he doesn't believe him. "For the next time, I recommend a better cover story. But there's gonna be no next time, you're going to jail."

"Mr Stark, wait!" Peter shouts when he sees Tony actually turn, "wait! It's me! I'm-uh-" his brain blanks. "I was up there with you. On Titan. Red dust and crazy people, Doctor Strange, that-that lady with those antennas-" he moves his fingers to mimick them, "-and then I-you were holding me. When I was-I said I didn't feel good. You were there. And then you weren't."

Tony doesn't say anything, but the wrists are released. "You're alive."

"Yeah—" he doesn't finish his sentence before he's pulled into a tight hug, which he returns happily, burying his face.

"So, so—time travel?" Mr Stark asks, scoffing, scratching the back of his head. "That's—not possible. It's not—what's—" he looks to the holotable, tilting his head.

"You're here for Thanos?" He asks, unconvinced, because the hologram has nothing to do with that big Purple Guy who must not be named.

Peter shakes his head, "no. No, for this."

"Why—" he stops, realization dawning on his face as he sighs shakily, "where am I a few years from now?"

He can't answer that. He doesn't want to answer that, so he shrugs. "All the timelines I travel back to, it creates an alternative one. Anything I do here won't change my future."

"And what's your future? You look good."

"It would be your future too, but I'm back here and I already changed it, so yours will be different now," he tries to explain, sighing as he looks at Mr Stark try and understand what he's saying.

Tony narrows his eyes as he studies the hologram, "who sent you back?"

"Pepper," he says without a beat, "she sent me. I mean she didn't want to because she was scared I wouldn't—she—"

Thankfully, Mr Stark misses the 'wouldn't' and gives him a big smile, "Pepper? She's—she's with me? She's doing all this."

It breaks his heart. "Uh huh, yeah, her and—and everyone else." God it's hard not to point that out. "Someone found it and you deleted the prototype so I came to get it."

His smile falters, and he puts his head down, and that's when the real realization hits, Peter sees, because he clenches his jaw shut. He just messed everything up.

"You're not excited to see past me," Mr Stark says, "you're excited to see me," he looks to Peter, maybe expecting him to say otherwise, and he nods, smiling sadly when he doesn't.

Peter sighs shakily, "we all miss you. So much—I mean, there's—" he turns frenziedly, waving his hands in the air, "—huge posters of you and—and graffiti like everywhere—" he stops when he sees Tony's smile fade.

"Pep. Morgan. What about them?"

"She grew up with everyone telling her how awesome you were so," he shrugs, and he has on what else to say next, "and Pepper uses Rescue now and people are like 'she's Iron Woman' and I mean she hasn't really got one name, she's got loads—but she only uses it in like emergencies. Or when she's helping me. And she's still CEO of Stark Industries. She's pretty cool."

"Yeah," Tony nods, smiling at Peter again, looking him up and down. He pulls in for another hug, and Peter relishes in it, closing his eyes and tightening his hold. "You're great. You all sound…great."

"The team? What about them?"

He opens his mouth to say 'nothing', but realizes that their 'nothings' mean completely different things. "Cap—Captain America's like ninety," he laughs.

"I know."

"No, like literally. He—" he censors himself again, "lived out his life in the past and he came back as this real old man that gives like big pep talks and speeches that we had to listen to in school," he says with a smile.

Tony seems fazed by it. "He did that."

"Yeah. Everyone else's pretty much the same." He leaves out the fact that there's no 'Avengers' anymore, or that Black Widow is also long gone with Tony.

"And we all miss you," he adds, looking to the holotable, "she kept everything the same. Morgan plays around with it, and—and we tell her stories—me, Mr Rhodes and Happy, I mean. And like she's ten now, so she spends a lot of time searching you on Google and you know, she finds some things and we gotta tell her what actually happened and not the story they wrote—"

He stops when he sees Tony smile at him in amazement.

Peter smiles back, "you get the point. And Pepper's gonna be so mad I even talked to you."

"Is that why she wouldn't send you?"

He cowers a little, "yeah. She indirectly said she didn't want me having any crazy ideas to stay, because—" he shrugs, "—I mean, I could. Me here doesn't even exist, and I could help you for a few years and make sure you—" he purses his lips.

"You know I'd take you up on the offer, but if this is the hill I—"

"Don't say it. Don't—don't say that. It doesn't have to be, Mr Stark, I know what happens to you in my future, but you can change that."

Tony scoffs, though not unkindly, looking across the room as he squints, "time travel doesn't even exist here yet, but I still know the one thing you're not supposed to do is go to the past to mess everything up," he looks up and softens, "you didn't though, and that's what I'm—"

"Mr Rogers spent fifty years living in it, you think he didn't do anything that could've affected some alternate future somewhere?"

"Kid—"

"Okay. Put it into perspective. In one timeline, you literally left Loki with the Tesseract."

Tony doesn't seem convinced. Just confused and maybe a little disbelieving.

"Mr Stark. Pepper brings you up in every single interview and conversation we have, and Morgan's growing up never knowing you. Just your holograms and stories that iwe told her," he raises his brows; watches as he succeeds in his mission to upset Tony to the point of listening to him. "And me. Who you left after seeing for literally five seconds after—" he stops.

"Should've led with that," he says, pointing a quick finger to him as they both turn their heads up the stairs when they hear footsteps. They listen a little more, and Tony waves his hand, "we're in the clear.

"It's Morgan—well, you're in the clear, I'm in trouble," he says, making a face and heading to the stairs, shouting "I'll be right—"

"Don't bother!" Pepper calls tiredly.

He looks back to Peter, "you'd love—you've met her. You've met her," he pauses, "you'd love baby Morgan," he says proudly. Then he sighs, "okay. Alright. You're gonna tell me everything, then you're going back."

Peter deflates, "what? No, I can—"

"You heard the boss lady—" he points upstairs, "—the rules were no talking and no staying, and you already majorly screwed up the first thing."

"It's just two years—"

"Two years," he huffs a laugh in disbelief, "-that I will see to when you're long gone in a few minutes."

"Mr Stark, no!"

"Peter."

He's in disbelief. "I don't wanna go back there."

"You gotta," Mr Stark answers softly, "'coz my Peter's still trapped somewhere and as much as I'd love two of you here—" he shrugs and inhales, "—there's a life out there. iYour life. Pepper. May. Your friends. Look at you, you're all grown up," he says with a proud smile.

"Alright," Peter says, half-convinced.

Tony nods, opening a drawer from under the table and taking a slim USB out and plugging it into the side, "hit me," he says as he drags the work into a folder. "What happens?"

He guesses he should start with Scott, which is what he does. And it's easily explainable.

"Inverted Mobius strip," Tony repeats after Peter, cutting him off in the middle as he looks into the distant, lost in his thoughts.

"Yeah. So you solved it. You made these weird white and red suits to go back to get the stones. But you can't send Nebula to Morag—"

To where?"

"You should write this down," Peter says, concerned.

Tony raises his brows, "Friday, you caught all that right?"

"Right up to 'you should write this down'," Friday repeats a recording of him speaking, and Peter chuckles.

"Yeah, Morag. That's where the Power Stone is. But you can't send her there."

"What? She switch sides?"

"No. Thanos finds her and he finds out all about your plan. It's why he comes to Earth and—he tries again."

"But I win," Tony points out jokingly.

Peter nods, clenching his jaw, "uh huh."

"It's okay," Tony tells him assuringly when he sees him.

It's not okay. He doesn't even know what happened. "Yeah. So don't send her. Send someone else. Maybe that buys you time or maybe he never comes down. Hopefully it's the second one."

"That sounds do-able," Tony says.

Then he closes his eyes for a second, "but you need the Soul stone."

Tony waits for him to continue.

"It's a soul for a soul."

He frowns. "That's—okay. Who—how did we—"

"Clint Barton went with Natasha Romanoff."

"Clint?" He asks, surprised. "Clint comes back?"

"Natasha got him back. But they went together, and—they fought. She died."

Tony gives a slight shake of the head, as if he doesn't believe it. "So someone dies."

"It's—it has to be someone you love. Or it doesn't work."

It seems to be a gamechanger for Tony, because he's suddenly twitchy and uncomfortable with the conversation. "Someone's definitely going to die."

"Mr Stark—"

"I can't ask—who—"

"Pretty much everyone. They all would've done it."

He takes the USB out, holding it in his hands for a few seconds before turning and handing it over to Peter, who takes it reluctantly.

"Did they know? When they went? Is that why the two of them went to get it and no one else?"

"No," Peter says, sighing, "no, they found out when they got there. I know this is a lot. And you—all of you need time to think it over. But—"

"What happens after that?"

"You get the stones. The Hulk snaps everyone back and nearly loses his arm, but Thanos knows all that because of Nebula, so he comes from 2014 to do it again. Everyone's there to try to stop him and get rid of the gauntlet, even Pepper, and—it doesn't work. He gets it, and—and he's about to snap and then you go in to take it off him."

There's a pause.

"We thought you failed. But Thanos snaps and nothing happens. And you're all like 'I am Iron Man'—" he says in a sudden burst of excitement, "—and you snap. They all go and—you—you're—" he vaguely waves to his face, "—all just—you didn't even say anything—"

Tony doesn't let him finish, although he doesn't think he could've finished anyway. He gently pushes Peter backwards until they hit a chair, and he pushes him down, kneeling down in front of him as he tries to breathe again.

"Whatever I did, I chose to do."

Peter shakes his head, "yeah, yeah, I know," his voice his raspy and cracking.

"Do you?"

Peter looks up quickly. "I can stay."

"But you can't," Tony says simply, leaning forwards and putting a hand on his shoulder. "I can handle this."

"What if I messed this up? Doctor Strange said there was one way, what if—"

"I'll handle it. Besides, I still got two years before it's meant to happen to think it over."

Peter runs a hand over his face. "I miss you."

"And I miss you," Tony says like it's the most obvious thing in the world, and Peter swears he sees tears in his eyes. "Everyday."

"I don't-"

Tony smiles, "I wouldn't either. Perfect world here, right? But you got one just as perfect. One which I'd like to think that I wanted you to live in," he says softly, like he's talking to a young child. "You turned out perfect."

Peter reaches forwards and pulls Tony in for a tight hug. He won't get to ever again. They stay that way for a long moment, before Tony pulls away.

"You take care of yourself, and my other kid," he says with his signature smirk, "and tell Pep…" he trails off, trying to think, "I love them 3000."

Peter smiles back.

And he doesn't realize that it's Mr Stark who is holding his wrist and pressing it as soon as he finishes talking, before Peter can think of another excuse to prolong his stay.

it could've been edited better, but it's here? Thank you all so much for the amazing reviews and messages even when I don't update at like months at a time

I kinda flopped at taking requests after my one-year break. But if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

and AO3 username is Catzzy for those who were asking :)