Tony tries to deal with the immediate aftermath of Thanos' snap.

Rated: T for language

Disclaimer: While I've seen every MCU movie, some dozens of times, I've only managed to see Infinity War twice, and I'm not that familiar with the canon comic-book material. Also, SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't yet seen Infinity War, please read at your own risk!

Tony wasn't aware—not that he really cared anyway—how much time had passed since… since it happened. He could've been sitting there on that desolate rock for minutes, days, or even centuries for all he knew, cradling all that remained of the kid against his heart. His haunted eyes stared blankly at the endless toxic wasteland that was Titan, as Peter's terrified voice reverberated through his head.

"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go, sir, please! I don't wanna go!"

Peter was a brilliant kid, as bright as they come, and so strong he could stop a speeding runaway bus with his bare hands. But yet at the end, after witnessing four other people fade into oblivion, he was just as terrified to die as any other teenage boy.

Even so, his last words were meant for Tony, to help comfort him. Because that's the kind of person that Peter was. Always looking out for everyone else.

"I'm sorry."

Around Tony, everything else was still. Even the slight breeze had faded away as soon as the ashes of the dead were sufficiently scattered. It's as if the rest of the universe was as stunned as he.

And why shouldn't it be, really?

They had lost.

They had lost, and now Peter was gone. Turned to ash, along with Strange, Quill, the bug lady, Mr. Clean, and whoever else had faded away. Was Pepper still alive? Rhodey? Happy? Bruce? Aunt May?

Tony had no way of knowing. He was still stuck out here, in goddamn space.

He drew in a shaky breath, his lungs burning from the dry, stale air and the intense throbbing of the stab wound in his abdomen. Clenching his left hand into a fist around Peter's ashes, he brought it to his lips, squeezing his eyes closed. His fingers turned numb they were so tightly clenched, and his breathing grew more and more erratic as his body rocked back and forth, his shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to hold himself together.

He was having a panic attack.

No, no, please, not here! he thought. He clenched his teeth, trying to remember what his doctor had told him about managing these symptoms when they arose. Back at home when this sort of thing would happen he'd usually find something to tinker with to help occupy his mind. Program a new upgrade to the kid's suit. Work on that new computer for Pepper. Rebuild Rhodey's new spinal support. Try and come up with a dampening field for the Avengers Compound so Vision would have to quit walking through the damn walls all the time and scaring everyone.

Why didn't he go home, like I told him? Damn kid, never listened to me when it was important.

"The boy. Was he your son?"

Tony jumped at the sound of the low, soft, mechanical-sounding voice. He'd completely forgotten that he wasn't alone out here. The bluish-green robot girl, what was her name again? She was still here.

Slowly, he turned his head, his breaths still coming in stilted gasps as he studied the girl's androidish face. She wasn't crying—perhaps she was unable to cry—but her shoulders sagged and her eyes were half-lidded. Tony could vaguely remember someone mentioning that Gamora was her sister, so perhaps she was grieving for her loss too.

"No, not exactly," Tony said, forcing the words past the lump in his throat the size of his mini arc reactor. "He was my—, my—"

He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. Peter was his son, really. Even if not by blood, Peter was as good as Tony's son. Tony sure thought of him as such.

"He fought bravely," she said, in that same soft voice. "You should be proud."

I was already proud of him, Tony thought. I didn't need him to fight off a monstrous, mad, space demon obsessed with balancing the universe to be proud of him.

"I know he did," he said instead, pressing his ashes-stained hand to his chest. "He always did."

The girl took a step back, eyeing Tony up and down.

"You're injured," she stated. "I can fix Quill's ship, get us out of here. Back to your home planet."

"Sure, yeah," Tony replied with a half-hearted shrug, wincing as the slight movement sent another jagged jolt of pain through his body. Guess he won't be offering to help. Any other time he would've jumped at the chance to tinker around with alien technology, but this was hardly any other time.

The girl worked quickly, and as she practically dragged Tony into the co-pilot's seat, she handed him a small bottle of some yellowish liquid and fired up the engines. Tony laid his head back against the headrest, trying to ignore the fact that the entire ship smelled like a basket full of sweaty gym socks. He swallowed hard at the rising bile in his throat, willing his heart rate to slow down and his breathing to even out. The last thing he needed was to vomit here, all over this rust bucket spaceship. That surely wouldn't help the awful stench at all, and would also likely tear open his abdominal wound. As it was, he barely had enough nanoparticles left to keep it closed until they could get to Earth.

Stabbed with his own damn weapon. How poetic.

"Drink," the girl said, gesturing to the bottle she'd placed in Tony's right hand. "You've lost a lot of blood and are dehydrated."

"I'm all right," said Tony dismissively. The thick, yellow liquid looked revolting, and Tony suspected it would taste even worse, and then he really would have to puke.

"You're in pain," she insisted. "It will help."

Rolling his eyes, Tony huffed out a sharp breath and twisted the cap off the bottle, taking two large gulps as quickly as he could, trying not to let the liquid touch his tongue. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as he'd feared, and he did notice a slight decrease in the throbbing pain of his wound.

Unfortunately, it only made the ache in his heart that much more prominent.

"Where should we land on your planet?" the girl asked as they took off.

Letting out a sigh, Tony shook his head. His first thought was New York, at the upstate Avengers Compound. Surely there'd be people there who would help them.

Wouldn't there? Or were they all dead now?

"Wakanda," he said a few seconds later. He's not quite sure what made him think of the remote African country, home to most of the world's vibranium, except that when Bruce first explained to him about the immense threat posed by Thanos, right before all hell broke loose in New York City, he was more frightened than Tony had ever seen him. That T'Challa guy was one kick-ass dude, or at least he was at the airport fight in Leipzig. If Bruce did in fact call Steve Rogers on that damn Nokia flip phone, Tony could see Steve directing him to Wakanda.

Bruce also saw—or at least Tony hoped that he saw—Tony fly up to Squidward's donut ship, after the kid, so he'd know they'd be coming from space.

"Wakanda," Tony repeated. "It's located on the second-largest continent on Earth."

The girl nodded, adjusted a couple controls, and settled back into her chair, closing her eyes. Tony did the same, trying to breathe through his mouth, relieved that she didn't seem to want to talk any more than was necessary.

The next thing he knew the android was poking him awake. "They're asking for identification," she said gruffly. "Apparently they don't like mine."

She pointed to a button the console, presumably the communications channel. Tony groaned as he leaned forward, clearing his dry, scratchy throat.

"This is Tony Stark," he said in the most authoritative tone he could muster. "I need to speak with Bruce Banner."

Please Bruce, be there.

There was a loud burst of static, followed by Bruce's relieved voice. "Good God, Tony," he said over the crackly radio. "It really is you. Hold on, we gotta open some force shield or something, then we'll send landing coordinates."

"Might wanna have a hospital bay ready," Tony said, grimacing as he pressed his arm into his bloody abdomen. "I took a pretty bad one up there."

"Don't worry, we'll take care of ya," Bruce assured him. "We're just all relieved to find you."

Tony didn't dare ask who "we" were. He knew he'd find out soon enough.

Bruce was there, waiting with a teenage girl with elaborately braided dark hair and some sort of floating stretcher as soon as the ship jolted to a stop. Tony hesitated only for a second before climbing onto the stretcher and curling onto his side. As embarrassed as he was to be seen so wounded and defeated, he didn't trust himself to be able to walk right now.

They took him into a brightly lit room filled with technology the likes of which Tony had never seen before. If he hadn't been so delirious with grief and pain he would've been quite impressed with the machinery and gadgetry that he was able to glimpse. As it was, he could barely keep his eyes open as the girl—Shuri, Bruce said her name was—started to work on him, mumbling constantly under her breath about having to fix yet another broken white boy.

Once Shuri announced she was done for the time being, she gave Tony some water and pulled a blanket over him, telling him to try and get some rest. Tony opened one eye, intending to utter a thanks, but was stopped short by the immense sadness he saw in her deep brown eyes. She must've lost someone in the purge too.

Against his will, Tony fell almost immediately into a dream, likely hastened by whatever painkiller Shuri had slipped into his water. He saw Peter, his innocent brown eyes wide as he took in the sight of Tony just casually sitting in the living room of his Queens apartment. The look of pure hero-worship that lit up his boyish face, as if meeting Tony Stark—in his own home, no less—was the best thing that had ever happened to him in all his fifteen years of life.

"I can't go to Germany," he'd said a few minutes later, after Tony revealed what he knew about Peter and his abilities, and Peter stopped trying to pretend that Tony was somehow mistaken. Tony was never mistaken about this sort of thing.

"Why not?" asked Tony.

"Ah," Peter stammered. "Cause I got… homework."

It had taken all of Tony's self-control to not laugh out loud at that statement. Tony's own schooling was so convoluted as a child, with skipping grades and special tutors. And it was a very rare occasion at MIT where Tony actually completed an assignment as assigned by his professors, instead of simply submitting one of his own inventions for credit. But here was this kid, who appeared to be almost as smart as Tony himself was at his age, saying he couldn't leave because he needed to do homework.

Peter Parker was about as pure as they came. It was one of the things that drew Tony to him the most. The almost overwhelming urge to protect him from all the bad things in the world, all the things that Tony had to deal with growing up as Howard Stark's son. The anger he felt at the airport when Steve dropped that terminal on his head was so intense it frightened him, as was the deep sense of horror and dread he felt when he spotted Peter lying motionless on the tarmac only minutes later.

Tony shuddered as he jerked awake, groaning as he shifted on the firm but strangely comfortable platform. Through the large windows he could see that darkness had fallen, and the room where he resided was still and quiet. Drawing in a deep breath, Tony clutched his ashes-stained hand to his chest, squeezing his eyes closed.

"Are you in pain?" a voice asked through the darkness, startling him. He hadn't realized anyone else was here.

"No," Tony replied, even though it was a lie. The throbbing in his abdomen was gone, the deep wound closed by whatever fancy healing technology Shuri had used on him. Bruce told him when she was nearly finished that he'd been lucky; a couple centimeters closer to the midline and Tony would've completely bled out only minutes after being stabbed, nanotechnology or not.

"Liar," said Shuri as she stepped closer, so Tony could see her face. "You cannot hide it; I can see it in your eyes. You are in a great deal of pain."

Tony looked away, uneasy under her piercing gaze. "This isn't healable pain," he muttered.

"You lost someone," she said. It was a statement, not a question. Everyone left alive had lost someone. "Who was it?"

The scratchiness in the back of his throat intensified, and Tony shook his head, his jaw clenched and his lips pursed. "His name was Peter," he whispered.

"And he was your friend?" asked Shuri. "This Peter?"

"No," said Tony as burning hot tears pricked his eyes. He tightened his left hand into a shaky fist. "He wasn't my friend. He was… he was… like a son to me."

Shuri nodded, her lower lip trembling slightly. "I understand this pain, Tony Stark." She held out her arms, sweeping them around the room filled with every type of gadget imaginable, and some that weren't. "Unfortunately, with all of my knowledge and technology, I have no way to heal it."

"You lost someone too," Tony said.

"Yes," replied Shuri. "My brother, our king."

Our king.

She meant T'Challa, the Black Panther. Shuri was his younger sister.

"Try and sleep now, Tony Stark," she said. "There is nothing else we can do at this moment."

Tony nodded in reply, even as he knew that further sleep would be elusive. Shuri placed her hand lightly on his shoulder before retreating silently back to whatever corner she'd come from.

After the fight in Germany, as Tony got to know Peter better, the protectiveness he felt for the kid only intensified. Tony could tell Peter was impressed by him. After all, most people were, although Tony suspected it was due more to his Iron Man persona than because he was Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. But what Peter didn't realize, and likely never did, was that Tony was just as impressed by him. If not even more so.

Tony had never wanted for anything, at least materialistically. His father's immense wealth gave him access to the best materials and technology that money could buy. Peter, on the other hand, had to work with whatever he could scrounge up from the Dumpsters around his school and apartment. That old Macintosh computer sitting on the second hand desk in his bedroom? Peter had found that ancient thing sitting outside the back door of a computer repair shop, and after asking the shop owner's permission to take it home, proceeded to turn it into something that was actually useable, instead of just a twenty pound paperweight.

Of course in the months following the fight with Cap, Tony slowly funneled enough money towards Peter—through various anonymous methods—to not only revamp his room, complete with the best new Macintosh he could justify giving a high school kid, but also update his new Spider Suit with the best artificial intelligence system that Tony could think up. The AI that Peter had so aptly named, Karen.

The suit that Tony then confiscated from Peter after the ferry incident, when Peter's lies and disobedience had forced Tony into a proverbial corner. He'd hoped the humiliation of Peter being dumped back at home with nothing except a pair of pink Hello Kitty pajama pants and a too-large New York souvenir t-shirt would be enough to knock some sense into the kid, but alas, he was wrong. All it did was bring Peter back to his friendly-neighborhood, working-class, build-everything-himself roots.

And after Peter brought down that plane, and subsequently turned down Tony's invitation to come and live at the Avengers Complex, Tony rewarded him for his newfound maturity by returning his Spider Suit, complete with brand-new Karen upgrades, not one but two tracking devices, and a new, even better parachute, designed to dematerialize if it became submerged in water.

He also put item 17-A—the Iron Spider Suit—on permanent standby with F.R.I.D.A.Y., just in case.

But in the end, not even the best and most technologically advanced suit Tony could dream up was enough to save Peter. Once again, Tony had failed.

Tony curled his left hand under his chin and closed his eyes. He'd refused to allow Shuri to clean it while she was working on him, not wanting the last remains of Peter to be simply washed away, like unwanted dirt. He wanted to cling to them just a bit longer.

He wasn't yet ready to let go.

As the first slivers of dawn crept up over the mountains in the distance, Tony gave up the pretense of trying to sleep and sat up, wincing as various joints popped and groaned in protest. As much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't as young as he used to be.

Glancing around, he noticed he was alone in the large room. Shuri must've slipped out at some point, perhaps going off to try and catch some sleep. There was a glass of water next to his platform, along with something that looked like the Wadandan version of a granola bar. Tony reached for the water glass, his hand shaking as he brought it to his lips, nearly choking as the cool liquid slid past his parched throat.

He was still gasping for breath when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," he croaked, quickly chugging another gulp of water.

He was expecting Shuri to come walking through the door. Or maybe Bruce, or even Rhodey; Bruce had told him that Rhodey survived Thanos' snap.

He absolutely was not expecting to see Steve Rogers enter the room, looking more bedraggled and defeated than Tony had ever seen him.

Almost instantly Tony felt his jaw tighten at the sight of his former teammate-turned-fugitive. Although obviously still very fit, Steve looked rough, as though the years he'd spent running from the law had actually been tough on him. His hair was longer than he'd worn it before, he had a shaggy beard that aged him at least ten years, and although Tony could still make out the star and stripes on his dusty uniform, it was so stripped down from its usual patriotic verve that they were barely recognizable.

Was this was Steve meant about showing his dark side?

Steve paused right inside the room, a tentative expression on his bearded face. Tony's upper lip curled, and that old feeling of wanting to punch him in his perfect teeth flared up in his chest, as if it had been only moments before that Steve had left him lying on the freezing concrete floor of that Hydra facility in Siberia.

Where Steve had dropped his shield—the shield Howard Stark had made for him—next to Tony's prone body as he dragged an injured Bucky What's-his-face away.

"Tony—" Steve started, taking a couple steps towards him.

"What the hell do you want?" Tony interrupted, each word shooting from his mouth like a blast from his palm repulsors.

Steve stopped in his tracks, raising his hands up in surrender. "I'm not here to fight with you, Tony."

The eerie calmness in Steve's voice only served to make Tony angrier. "No?" he snapped, dangling his legs over the side of the platform. "Let me guess, the soldier's finally had enough fighting?"

"Tony, this isn't helping anything!" Steve retorted. His hands dropped back to his sides, and he took another step towards Tony. "I'm only here to—"

"Did you know he was only a kid?" Tony demanded. "When you dropped an entire fucking jet bridge on top of his head, did you know he was just a kid? DID YOU?"

"He wasn't just an ordinary kid, Tony—"

"He was MY KID!" screamed Tony, slamming his fist against the platform. "He was my kid, my responsibility, and you tried to fucking kill him! You laid him out and dropped a twenty ton jet bridge on his head!"

"I'm sorry!" shouted Steve. He crossed the distance to Tony's platform in three strides, his chest heaving, his fists clenched at his sides. "I'm sorry, Tony, okay? But maybe you shouldn't've brought someone so young in on it in the first place!"

A fresh wave of grief bubbled up in Tony's chest, and he slumped back against the platform, his eyes trained on his ashes-stained palm. "It doesn't matter now anyway. He's gone. We lost."

Steve let out an enormous sigh. "Tony, you're not the only person who's lost someone. Everyone here has lost someone, people they loved. But if someone dies on our watch, we don't give up. Remember?"

"Don't you say that to me," warned Tony, his upper lip curling into a sneer. "Don't you dare say that to me right now. Look around you, Rogers. We've lost. Even you should be able to see that."

"Not necessarily, Tony," said Steve quietly. "Bruce and Shuri have been talking; apparently she was able to learn some things from the Mind Stone… before it was taken by Thanos. Nebula is working with her now. Thor's on his way to pick up Barton and Lang. Once they get here, we can start to work on a plan."

"Plan?" asked Tony, nearly spitting the word. "What plan? What in the hell can be done about… this?" He pointed out the large window, at the battle carnage still littering the vast plain outside.

"I don't know," Steve answered. "I'm not the brains of this organization." He paused, cocking his head as he drew in a deep breath. "They could use your help, Tony. They're working in a makeshift lab at the moment since this one was damaged, but..."

Tony pursed his lips, shaking his head as he thought. Peter was always the optimistic one, not him. Tony always planned for the worst. It's what drove him to upload the near constant updates to the suits, both his and Peter's. It's what drove him to ask Aunt May to list him as an emergency contact for Peter at his school. It's what drove him to invite Peter to come and stay at the Avengers Complex on weekends, so he could see for himself what Peter was up to, not fully trusting the boy's vague phone updates since the battle with Vulture.

What help could he possibly be to anyone right now?

"I don't—" Tony started, but then stopped. He could almost hear Peter's kind voice in his head.

"We should help them, Mr. Stark. They're counting on us."

"Bruce got ahold of Pepper, Tony," Steve said. "She's on her way."

Tony's head snapped up at the unexpected news. Pepper was alive. She was on her way.

Pepper loved Peter, and Peter adored "Ms Pepper" just as much. Tony even caught Peter sleeping on her shoulder in the media room of the Avengers Complex late one Saturday night, after a particularly tough week of school. They'd been watching The Empire Strikes Back for the umpteenth time.

Pepper would be able to mourn with him. She'd understand some of what he's going through.

Okay, kid. Let's help them.

"All right, fine," said Tony, slowly sliding off the platform. "Lead the way, Cap."

With a single nod, Steve turned around and headed for the door. Tony clutched his aching left arm in his hand as he followed, glancing up at the sky through the window, noticing the thick grey clouds gathering overhead. His arm always ached worse when it rained.

He wasn't able to save Peter from Thanos' snap. But maybe, just maybe, with their combined minds and a bit of luck, Tony would somehow be able to avenge him.

After all, Strange did say there was one possibility for victory. One possibility, even out of millions, was at least better than none.

"What was his name?" asked Steve as they turned a corner. "The kid? Spider-Man?"

"Peter," replied Tony, flexing his hand. "His name is Peter."

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