After a glass of scotch each, Tony and Stephen looked at each other. "Okay this is really weird, I don't know where to start" Dr. Strange said, looking a little tired " well like a confessional, you start from the beginning "Tony said wiggling his eyebrows . That had Dr. Strange let out a chuckle before becoming serious " okay lets begin from the start." With that Tony told Friday to record Stephen's memories and find any deviations.
6hours and 40 mins later, Dr. Strange looked pale and dead eyed while Tony just took a deep breath and said " Stephen this is probably hypocritical of me but you need to sleep. In less than two days, you managed to get almost everyone involved in this mess on the same page, fixed up your ancient sanctum probably even prepare your magic people and brief them on what's going on while thinking over millions of memories of timelines. You are exhausted and so am I. We can't do any thinking in this state." "Okay I will go back to the sanctum and can be back later, call me when you are ready" Stephen replied sluggishly. "No, just take one of the guest rooms, it's quicker. Friday will show you." Stephen just nodded his thanks standing up to let Friday lead him to a room.
All alone now, Tony quickly got up and ran to the toilet to throw up, every time he thought of what Stephen told him his stomach churned. Soon he was throwing up bile and dry heaving with nothing left in his stomach, Tony finally stopped clutching the toilet bowl and leaned against the wall with his head between his knees.
Tony had just learnt how many ways he could died during a single event, several million different ways to die. The images of the other Avengers appeared in his mind in flashes and the ways how they could possibly die flooded Tony's brain but then Peter's image appeared and then tony had the air sucked right out of him. Tony couldn't breathe, air had suddenly become heavy, his chest felt like he was being stabbed multiple times, all he could see was Peter dying, he faintly heard Friday talking but he couldn't understand ,his mind was overtaken with images of peter dying over and over and over.
In what seemed like moments later, Tony gasped to Friday " fri…cal..pete.." and in what felt like an eternity, he finally heard him, his sunshine. " Hey, Mr. stark guess what, today the new star wars 5000 Lego piece figurine comes out and Ned said that he had already pre booked for it and it's being delivered tonight so I was going to drop by after patrol, Mr. Stark, are you okay you sound out of breath."
"It's fine kid,.. I just came off the treadmill,... keep talking, about you and Ted's plans. " Tony said out of breath. Peter immediately replied " it's Ned , Mr. stark his name is Ned and I was wondering if Ned and I can spend some time in one of the R&D Stark industry labs to work on our robotics home work." " why not use your personal lab, it's bigger and no people to distract you but I don't mind just check with Friday to book a lab." Tony told peter. "Okay, I will tell Karen to let Friday know when we are going to use the lab and my personal lab has spiderman gear. I don't want to make or think of anything spiderman related, so we need a different space. Mr. stark, can we have the lab weekend at the compound? I know it's far from queens so no patrol but I was thinking of taking the weekend off patrolling anyway, so I can help to work on the nano technology with you and Vision. Tony suddenly cut peter off from continuing talking with a sharp no then went to bargain "Under-Roos, I know, I promised to take you to the compound one these weekends but there is currently some classified work being done here and Vision isn't here, he is in Wakanda, so how about this, we spend the weekend at the tower, Ned can even sleep over if his parents accept and we can all work on some new toys for you suit and I also get to see you robotics project, maybe we can even work on some R&D project. " Peter replied with "really! Mr. Stark can we really have a sleepover at the tower I can't wait, Ned is going to pass out, when he hears this" then went on to continue chatting about his day and his plans with aunt May for the rest of the week, soon it was time for Peter's patrol so he had to hang up "bye, Mr. stark time to be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man"
" bye Roo"
During the course of his conversation with Peter, Tony had finally learnt to breathe again and picked himself up from the floor and went to the kitchen to get some water, he drunk two glasses right in the kitchen. Before heading back to his room to change out of his sweaty clothes and lay in bed. Tony found that just talking to the kid was relaxing, his heart didn't hurt anymore , his heart was now warm and he felt sweet. Tony knew he was attached to Peter but now, he had figured out how much he was attached, the mere thought of the kid getting hurt had him nearly having a heart attack, he loved Peter like a son. Peter was his son, his sunshine, breath of fresh air, an oasis in the desert. Then HIS kid had to talk about coming to the compound, the compound that is full of former SHIELD agents organizing for the up coming attack, a possible ground zero for Thanos' attack and Tony couldn't breath, he couldn't help but sharply say no before scrambling for an excuse and an appealing offer to get his kid's attention. Tony couldn't let his child come here, let him be in danger, his heart started to hurt again. Luckily peter was happy about this offer that he and Ned could spend the whole weekend together without patrol that he was back to talking about his day and this moment just felt perfect. Then his sunshine had to go on patrol .
Now Tony was alone again, his mind was replaying Stephen's words the millions of futures where they didn't win. The gravity of their situation was palpable, a heavy cloak of dread that settled on his shoulders, suffocating and cold. He felt a chill run down his spine, the kind that comes when hope is but a flicker in the overwhelming darkness of reality. Tony knew that fear now had a firm grip on him, but for that ray of sunshine, he would fight to his last breath if need be. So Tony got out of bed and went to his medicine cabinet to get a sleeping pill because he needed to be at a hundred percent for him and Stephen to come up with a truly winning path. With that Tony slept till the next morning .