Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the end, it was all for nothing.

Tony is going to die here and he doesn’t even have a pretty view. Obie is gone, left with the arc reactor and his company, and Tony can just about feel his toes again. It takes fifteen minutes for his body to break down the paralyzing agent—and that’s on a good day. Today is not a good day. Because his body is also shutting down and it seems that metabolizing the poison isn’t all that important to it right now. No, see, because he’s kind of dying. His heart is speeding up, his breaths are coming in short, and at this rate he’ll be dead before he can even blink those fucking tears away.

And he’s not even sat to face the window.

He’s got to die looking at the concrete bunker he built. There’s no love in here, he realizes. Designer furniture straight out of the catalogue. A carefully curated space that looks as washed out as he feels. He wonders why he needs—needed all that space. Eleven hundred square feet—for what? To throw parties for people whose faces he will have forgot in the morning? To cure his hangovers which always make him think that death is the preferable option? Well. Not long now...

At least the flower arrangement is pretty and he wonders who put it there. He can’t remember commissioning some nameless company to come in and replace it every week—maybe Pepper did that?—but he’s almost sure the flowers were blue a few days ago.

Would anybody come to his funeral?

The thought comes out of nowhere, but Tony doesn’t remember hiring the flower company or the names of the people that come in to clean his space. He doesn’t know who restocks the kitchen and there are about four people in his contacts that he regularly talks to. One of them just tried to kill him.

Wait, no, he didn't try. He actually killed him. Tony's reaction is just a bit delayed.

He forgot Peppers birthday and sucked up to the wrong people and Rhodey is probably mad at him right now. He makes Happy work too much and he was so rude to that blond girl, so he thinks his question is valid.

A man who has everything, and nothing.

All the money in the world and not a god damn thing to show for it except a desert full of weapons.

The flowers would look pretty at his funeral. He would like them to be red and yellow, like the suit. Maybe Rhodey can pull a few strings and get someone to play the bugler. Pepper would probably go, even if he forgot her birthday. He'd love it if she wore that blue dress.

But. He's not gonna know either way because, well, he'll be dead.

He could have made a difference. Tony is sure about that. If given the time, he could have turned the company and himself around. He could have made a positive impact. He could have learned the names of the people that work for him. He could have painted the walls a nice color, at least hung up a few more pictures, he could have—

There is darkness creeping in at the edges now. He can’t see the flowers anymore, can’t see his bunker… Yellow would have been a nice color. Why did he not paint the walls yellow? Like the flowers. Pepper would have liked that. Tony thinks he feels the shrapnel move, a sharp twist near his heart. He doesn’t know if he prefers it to cardiac arrest. Both kind of suck.

Tears sting in his eyes and he can’t even blink them away and then the darkness is moving and taking the shape of a person and—

For a moment he’s sure Obie is back, perhaps to finish the job, but the figure is too slender, too tall, too well dressed. It’s not Pepper either. He would recognize the clickety-clack of her heels anywhere. It’s got to be god, then. Tony doesn’t believe in god, but he didn’t believe his friend would kill him either, so… Amen? There’s a moment between when the tears fall and new ones well up in his eyes that he can see sharp cheekbones, long black hair and delicate fingers grasping the bright blue of the arc reactor.

It’s the old one, Tony can tell. The tech is all sketchy and the blue isn’t as bright. If only he’d put more effort into it sooner, shut down the weapons division sooner, worked on green energy sooner… Green is a pretty color too, he thinks. The man—he can see him clearly now— has green eyes. Very pretty green eyes. He’s smiling, too. But it’s not the smile Obie smiled, like he’s glad that Tony’s dying, but more like he’s glad that Tony isn’t.

The arc reactor clicks into place easily and Tony half wonders who taught him how to do that—but he can suddenly blink again, can think again—and panic surges in his chest. He shakes the tears off and thrashes for purchase. When he finds none, he grasps at nothing. His lungs expand all at once—there’s too much air, too much of everything—until he feels a hand on his cheek, cold and careful and grounding.

„Breathe, Anthony. You are safe now.“

No one calls him Anthony. No one except Pepper knows how to put the arc reactor in. No one should even be in his loveless bunker without his explicit permission.

„Who are you?“ Tony chokes out. He has just enough presence of mind not to vomit.

„A friend,“ Green Eyes says and gently traces the ridge of his cheekbone with his thumb. „Remember that when we meet again.“

The fuck does that even mean?

But before Tony can ask, the front door is thrown open and Green Eyes is gone. Not walked out, just… gone. There and then not. And Rhodey is all over him then, patting his cheek (a lot less gently) and saying words that Tony can’t hear.

Who has just saved his life and is he going to have to send him flowers as a thank you?

Chapter Text

A bit anticlimactic, Tony thinks.

Obie is dead. He went out with a boom and maybe that was the grand finale, but it didn't feel like one. There was no satisfaction in his death, no feeling good afterwards, no feeling safe. There was only grief in the knowledge that he lost one more person he loved.

He loved Obie. A friend, a father, someone he could count on. He'd seen them build a future together, thought Obie would be with him until the end. It'd be a lie to say he hadn't looked at Pepper after, and Rhodey, and Happy, and wondered. And fuck if that doesn't make Tony feel even worse. He knows that he can count on them—but damn he thought he knew that about Obie too.

"They wouldn't have risked themselves for you if their intention was to harm you, sir," Jarvis says and Tony knows, okay. He knows!

But it took him a while to start trusting again. Pepper was patient with him. She smiled at him and gave him space, and he was back on track in no time, but then the whole thing with Hammer and the palladium poisoning and then Rhodey took his suit—Tony just can't catch a fucking break, it seems.

And not a fucking sign of Green Eyes. Not even a glimpse.

Seven months since he saved his life and Tony has absolutely nothing to go on. JARVIS has no recording of the event, which is weird, and Tony was high on death at the time and can’t remember a damn thing beyond a physical attribute that’s shared by two percent of the world’s population.

Which is still seventy-eight million men.

Tony looks at everyone. On the way to the coffee shop, at every fundraiser, at every god damn SI meeting. It’s honestly embarrassing the amount of times he’s run into street poles or stumbled over his own two feet because he thought he saw someone that looked like him. One time he even followed someone home only to realize too late that they were a woman.

Yeah, he probably deserved the cops being called on him that day.

No matter how much he looks and how many times the police get called on him, as long as he doesn’t have all the facts, everything his obsession is going to get him is a major headache and a mugshot. And Tony has literally no facts.

“What did he tell you again?” Rhodey asks.

It’s the first time they sit together since the debacle at the party and Tony should really be trying to figure out the little palladium problem, but alas… He’s still mad, still hurt, and half the mansion has fallen into the ocean. Fury grounded him and Coulson is around here somewhere, ready to tease him into tomorrow if he as much as sets foot outside. Seemed like the perfect time to ask Rhodey over.

Tony has his face in his hands. “Remember that when we meet again.”

“Well, that’s easy then,” Rhodey says. “You just gotta to wait.”

Tony parts two fingers to squint at Rhodey with a look that very clearly says are you fucking kidding me?

Rhodey shakes his head, laughing. “Yeah, right.”

So Rhodey is no help, because even if he could get Tony access to the government facial recognition program, he’d still have nothing to compare the facts to. As much as he hates to admit it, the only option left is simply to wait.

And waiting goes against everything Tony is. He’s action driven and resourceful—there’s nothing Tony can’t figure out if he just puts his mind to. But this—this is different. Tony just hasn’t got all the facts, and—yeah, fuck if Rhodey is right.

But Rhodey didn’t consider the little problem with the palladium, which means that Tony is fucking dying again—and there is no time. He can’t just sit around and wait.

So Tony becomes reckless. He won't admit it to himself, but deep down it's a ploy to either get himself killed and beat the palladium, or draw out the mystery man. Either way, he's having fun doing it.

Though he's the only one.

Pepper doesn't understand. She looks at him in a way he can't stand. It’s pity or something of the sort, and he knows it's because she loves him but he. can't. stand. it.

He tries to mellow out but some but he's afraid. Tony actually doesn't want to die and the veiny criss-cross on his neck is well on it’s way to his brain.

And the fact that he's going to bite the dust soon is a real damper on his mood.

"The hell is wrong with you?" Rhodey snaps when Tony's being particularly prickly.

Tony just sighs and gets Jarvis to shut the door in his face. Not his best move, but oh well.

He knows his days are numbered. By his estimation, two more Friday nights before he won't be able to get out of bed by himself. Pushing Pepper and Rhodey away is a tactical decision. He gives Happy a week off, tells him to go see his family. All in attempt to retain some of his dignity.

"Dignity? You call this dignified?"

Tony hadn't realized he'd said his thoughts out loud, hadn’t realized either that the blurry green shape in the corner of his bedroom is a person.

He also hadn't showered in three days, hadn't eaten or brushed his teeth. He feels groggy and like death and if this anything like the real thing, it can’t be that bad.

"Fuck you," Tony manages. "Should have let me die the first time."

"And how would that serve me?"

"Serve you? I don't even know who the fuck you are." Tony doesn't know where he takes the strength to speak.

"Not long now," Green Eyes says.

Not long until he dies or until they meet again? Tony is too tired to ask. Either way, when Tony wakes up many hours later and stumbles over a fucking suitcase on his way to the bathroom, he thinks he should have stayed in bed.

Tony rolls over, rubs his eyes, and squints at the name written on it.

Howard Stark.