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Over and over, the world burned.
It had already been ten years since Jean Grey destroyed the time machine. Ten years since Tony had locked himself away in isolation, trying so feverishly to redo the work she had undone. Ten years since he lost hope, then finally gained it back, only to now lose it again.
Because reassembling the time machine, he was learning, was not actually the hard part.
The world had seemed all but saved when he realized that at long last, he'd had something working. It was supposed to be straightforward from here. Gather the heroes who were fated to help him, then input the right temporal coordinates and stop Birch from even nabbing Dark Phoenix in the first place. After a literal decade of reverse engineering a goddamn time machine on his own, that should have been a walk in the park, right?
They failed. The world went up in flames. Tony regained consciousness in the cabin he'd spent the last ten years in, the time machine's remote clutched tightly in his hand, and knew that he had to try again.
So he did. Again, then again, then again, and each time they failed, each time they burned, each time he found himself back here once more, finding it a little bit harder to keep on going.
But he had to. He had to, because there was no peace otherwise. The cabin provided no safety: maybe it was in a past before Birch's insane plans had kicked off, but his mind was happy to remind him of his impending failures anyway. "You let us burn," a distorted version of Steve would whisper whenever Tony closed his eyes, and Pepper, Rhodey, and Thor would look on, engulfed in flames.
(Distorted, because - because it had been so long since he'd last seen Steve. Since he'd last seen any of his closest friends. Ten years and counting: yes, of course he remembered that halo of golden hair, those blue eyes - but which dimple was just a little bit deeper when he smiled? Which finger of his had that dark freckle on it?)
With each new attempt, he tried giving the team different instructions. "Luke, try attacking Birch from the get-go," he said one time. "Alison, create a holographic projection to distract them," he said another. But no variant or combination of variants worked. It was always the same: the same fighting, the same screaming, the same burning.
Was he, he wondered, going to spend another ten years of his life trying to undo this one night?
Today, he was back in the cabin, remote in hand after yet another failure. Not that the word "today" had much meaning to him anymore, when every day was just a painful repeat of the one that had come before. On one of the walls, he'd scratched in a new tally mark every time he wound up here again, and he looked at them now, starting to count them out. One, two, five, ten, fifty, a hundred...
Never mind, he thought, and he laid down on the ground instead, ignoring the discomfort of his armor.
That was when he realized he was no longer alone.
Despite having no memory of ever meeting him, Tony instinctively knew who the other figure standing in the cabin was. His face was shrouded in darkness and there were no discerning features besides his eyes, which glowed a soft orange in the dim light, but he was unmistakable nonetheless: "The Watcher," Tony greeted softly, and he wondered what it meant to have such a being appear before him now.
"Tony Stark," the Watcher said.
Though it took effort, Tony pushed himself back onto his feet, feeling like whatever conversation they were about to have should not be done from the floor. "Why are you here?"
The Watcher tilted his head, appraising him for a long moment. "Because over and over again, you have failed," he said at last, and Tony jerked in response, reaching blindly behind himself to grab at the wall so that he could remain upright. "The world will be consumed by fire, and soon after that, the galaxy, then the rest of the universe. All because of what you did, and what you failed to do. And I am watching it happen."
How dare you, Tony wanted to snarl, but he realized he couldn't. Of course the Watcher would dare. It was only the truth, wasn't it? The only reason they were on this path was because of Tony's mistakes. The end of the world was coming, and it was all on him.
So he just took a deep breath, counting to five before letting out a long exhale. "Okay," he said finally. "I get it. I'm failing. And you wanted me to make sure I knew that. Is that all?"
The Watcher drifted closer - he had legs, and yet they didn't move when he did; instead, he glided over, and the effect was unsettling. "It is not," came the reply. "Tony Stark. I am here to give you a choice."
He paused then, and Tony didn't know if it was only for dramatics or some other purpose. Nonetheless, he waved a hand and nodded wearily, not having the energy to do anything more. "Okay," he repeated.
That was, fortunately, enough to get him to continue. The Watcher spread his arms wide and spoke: "Your choices are thus: one, you may stay here, in this universe, and continue to try. Success brings salvation. Failure brings fire. And so far, you have done nothing but fail.
"Two, you may abandon this universe, and I will take you to a different branch of it, one where you can try again. You will remember nothing of this conversation or the events that led up to it, but I will grant you one memory you may keep with you. Perhaps it will be enough for you to stop this from happening again, and we will not meet in the new branch. It is for you to decide."
Tony blinked slowly at him. That was it? The choice was clear. Go to the other branch, remember what happened with Donald Birch, and prevent any of this from even occurring in the first place. This branch may be doomed, but the multiverse existed, and if a new one was created where it wasn't doomed, then it would have the same net effect, right? And he would never have to have these visions, where a twisted version of Steve would hiss you let us burn over and over...
He opened his mouth to speak, then abruptly realized that there were actually a lot of open questions. The choice still felt clear, but... he had to be sure.
"When will the new branch start?" he asked.
"Vietnam," answered the Watcher.
Tony's throat went dry, and the implications of what the Watcher was potentially allowing him to do hit him like a sledgehammer. It was so much time, and between his birth as Iron Man and now, there were so many mistakes he could choose from to maybe undo. And if he picked his cards right, the ripple effect would ultimately indirectly prevent Birch from unleashing his plan, wouldn't it? He could save Ho Yinsen. Or prevent Jan from being turned into a living bomb. Or stop Stamford from ever happening...
His knees buckled, and suddenly he thought again of Steve.
These past ten years, Steve had been nothing but a ghost that haunted him, accusing him of things he couldn't deny - things that the Watcher was accusing him of now. Flames. Failure. Death. But somewhere outside of this cabin, the real Steve Rogers was living his life - living it with him, the Tony Stark native to this time.
(The Tony Stark, he thought with no small amount of longing, who knew about the dimples and the freckles, because he could see them every day. The Tony Stark who was happy with Steve, and the Steve who was happy with Tony. His past. Their present.)
Their civil war hadn't occurred yet. He knew this, because he knew what year it had been the night he'd met Dazzler and watched helplessly as Jean Grey destroyed the time machine. It had been one of the few things that kept him focused all these years - stay the course, fix the machine, and right Birch's wrongs before the past ever caught up to when he and Steve had fractured so terribly. If he had to choose between the two, he wasn't sure that Birch would have won.
But in a way, that was what the Watcher was offering him now, wasn't it? The ability to choose. Remember something that would prevent Stamford, or something that would prevent the world from burning.
The choice is clear, he thought again, and he didn't believe himself at all.
It was a mistake letting his mind wander in this direction. It wasn't like the concept of missing Steve was foreign to him these past ten years, but he'd always forced himself to move on and focus. He had to, because if he didn't, then Steve would burn. Everyone would burn. But now, with the weight of what he had to consider, it was impossible not to dwell on him.
He wanted it so badly - the possibility of a universe where he and Steve could be happy, could stay happy. Because the universe he'd come from, before Birch had taken him, didn't have that possibility. Their friendship had recovered after their war, but it wasn't the same. In his universe, Tony couldn't hold Steve's hands to study the freckles there anymore, to take in every minute detail of his smile without Steve minding the fact that he was staring.
But...
Was it really a possibility in that alluring new universe, wiped so conveniently cleanly of his past sins? Reed and he had talked at great length about the danger of affecting the timeline, many years ago. If he was counting on a ripple effect to neutralize Birch before he ever became a problem, who could say that that same ripple effect wouldn't also change everything about the way Steve had touched his life? What would a Tony Stark, fresh with trauma after nearly being killed by his own bomb and blessed - cursed - with a recollection he didn't understand, do? What if he never kissed Steve? Never formed the Avengers? Never found Steve in the ice in the first place?
He closed his eyes and, for the first time in years, let himself imagine Steve's hands. Steve's hands clutching the edge of his shield tight. Steve's hands spreading cream cheese on a sesame seed bagel. Steve's hands combing the hair out of Tony's face.
The freckle, he remembered now, was below the knuckle of Steve's left thumb.
His universe wasn't perfect. But it had Steve, and it had his memories of Steve. And maybe he wanted more from Steve than just memories, tinged with regret that they were, but they were too precious to give up willingly.
There was no other option he could possibly take. He would fight, both for this universe and for everything they had built in it.
"I'll stay," he whispered at long last. "I'll stay, and I'll fix this."
For several moments, the Watcher said nothing, only gazing upon him in silence. Then, so imperceptibly that Tony wasn't sure it happened at all, he nodded - and then he vanished, leaving Tony once more alone in the cabin. A little stunned, he sank to the floor, staring at the spot the Watcher had just been occupying before squeezing his eyes shut again, half-wondering if he'd just imagined it all.
The vision of Steve came back, but for once, the flames were gone, and the scene was quiet. This time, he smiled. "You won't let us burn," he said.
His right dimple was deeper.
This was his universe, Tony thought, and he would save it.