A/N - Hey, everyone. Over the past two and a half years, I've moved way on from the type of writing this story was. I've switched fandoms. I've written (and occasionally abandoned) more stories. I've switched platforms to AO3. But... I've also gotten PMs and reviews about this story. I've never been good at consistent updates, certainly never good at finishing longer stories. I've always been kinda ashamed of my "old" writing, which can happen even just a few days after I finish it. But what everyone has reminded me is that there are people out there who will want to read even the writing I feel like doesn't meet my current standards. And recently I remembered that if someone else had written something like this, I wouldn't have held it to nearly as high a standard as I hold my own writing. I would have just been happy it existed. I would have wanted to read the ending, even years later.

This was a story I should NOT have tried to rewrite the ending for (I rewrote it because it was shippy, and I was too ashamed back then to post anything romantic on the internet). And I'm very sorry that it meant everyone had to wait so long for me to decide that as long as the rest of the story was out there, I might as well finish it.

Sorry I kept you waiting.

"J, display timeline." His breath caught in his throat. His eyes were watering already, because this was it, the endgame. The end of the game. He hadn't seen past this point, he had no idea what would play out now.

The timeline, his pride and joy, flashed up into the air in a spiral of glorious color. The different rows shone brightly, from the legal fight Matt had compromised so many principles to win, to the plan to bring Steve's group in on the secret that had gone so well, to the presidential election they had all slaved over, to the document itself that was finally written.

"We sometimes stop looking at this thing in its entirety," Tony said, and it wasn't the speech he had recorded for today. It was just what he wanted to say. "We forget that there are rows and rows of this timeline that should have been impossible all on their own, rows that we would have hated if we'd seen them, say, three years ago." He thought he heard Matt snort.

They were lucky that they could all be there, even on Inauguration Day, even on a school day. Mrs. Keener had finally been informed that, okay, maybe her son was involved in something very special, but they couldn't say any more about it. She had taken it surprisingly well. Peter was just skipping school. T'Challa had made his excuses.

They were all together, and who knew how long it would last? He wanted to show them what he had done. He wanted to own what he had done, to embrace it with everything he had.

His heart skipped a beat, but in a good way. The instant he had read the Accords, realized that Ross was manipulating him, or trying to, he had created this. And damn it, it had worked.

"JARVIS, fast forward. Show today." They dove into the swirling colors, dove past events that had changed the course of history, and arrived at a blank space.

It shimmered and expanded into his hologram, as he had known it would. There was no writing on the timeline for Inauguration Day, none at all. President Morris had taken the Oath of Office mere hours before, every superhero in the world was tipping their head to the side and wondering what would happen. There were no words to describe the day.

"Well, here we are," said his recorded self, and Tony paused the image. Here they were indeed, including him. "Well, guys, here we are. The day more important than Election Day, but not because it's the inauguration." He flicked the timeline back to the full view.

There were about two dozen rows in all, everything from Matt's trials to deciphering the mysteries of the universe, and there was even a row for renovating the Tower to serve only as a superhero hub, not at all as a corporate building. Nearly every row was complete, even the international one, because Tony hadn't been able to guess past a certain point.

"What's the most important row?" He turned to the room at large. "This isn't a trick question, I'm not going to tell you it's all of them. There's only one right answer."

"That one." To everyone's surprise, it was actually Peter who made his choice first. "You could argue for the one about getting the Demosthenes Proposal accepted by the UN, but it's just a means to an end. The real heart of Demosthenes is the Unity row."

There it was, sandwiched between Congress and SHIELD. A row Tony had slaved over, true, but was it the right answer? "Defend your position."

"Oh, I'll defend it. He's right." Phil stuck his hands in his pockets. "You didn't put together this whole mess to save the world, you brought us together to save the world. Because in the end, that's what does it, right? This whole thing, from the Avengers Initiative to the Accords, had the same idea at its core. Bring people together, extraordinary people."

"Ah, there are the words you shouldn't have said," Tony teased, "Avengers Initiative. Because if you guys think about it… that's all this is. An idea to bring together a group of extraordinary people. And you're right, Peter, that's the most important line."

JARVIS didn't need to be told. He zoomed back to Inauguration Day and zoomed in until the little black word appeared.

CONGRATULATIONS.

The white campfire symbol appeared, then colored in, orange and yellow and red, with smoke gently rising from the top, thickening until it obscured the word, until it obscured the campfire, then it cleared away.

The lights came back on. The holograms faded. They didn't need them any more, they had something more important, they had each other. "I have something for us," Tony said, and he pulled out the official copy of the Demosthenes Papers. "I figured as long as we were all in the same place… maybe we could do this as a team."

"If anyone wants to leave," deadpanned Natasha, "would this be the time?" Tony nodded, and she casually sat on a counter, making no move toward the door.

Tony just smiled. "The thing is, according to these papers… please tell me you've all actually read them?" He winked and got a round of chuckles. They hadn't read them, they'd written them. "According to these papers, you can sign with any name you like, so long as you put down who you're going to be reporting to. Who is going to decide who calls you out on your shit, who takes you off the field if you're not thinking straight. Who puts you in handcuffs if you belong there. Who you're going to trust with your life if it comes down to it."

And it was only then that he realized he didn't know.

A/N - thanks so much to those of you who left reviews in the past 2.5 years. I did see them. I did read them. And this chapter never would have come out without you.