Chapter Text
Tony tried to focus through the pain from Thanos throwing him across the battlefield. Strange had a single finger raised when he looked at him. It was enough to firm his resolve as Tony shot forward trying to take the Infinity Gauntlet but really using his nanite armor to take the stones. Being thrown away again was painful but satisfying as he panted for breath.
The burn of the power from the stones flowing through the nanites into Tony wasn't mitigated at all. It wasn't something he focused on so much as what he needed to tell them to do. Thanos and his army had to go. Period. They must have hurt Reality with so many sweeping changes so fast so that had to be fixed before something important broke. Knowing humans at least the return of the dusted wasn't going to go smoothly. Too many lives lost and people missing.
No.
To fix this it had to have never happened or been part of a one off time loop. Morgan, May, Pepper.... He was going to lose everything. Which meant he had to pick out people to go back with him or he was going to lose his sanity and nothing would get fixed. Strange had to come as the Guardian of Time but he didn't know who belonged to Strange besides Wong. Peter... he wouldn't put Peter through this nightmare but without it Morgan would never be born.
"I am Inevitable," Thanos smirked as he snapped and finally noticed the missing Stones.
Tony panted as he directed the stones into position on his own nanite glove. His mind solidified on what had to be done. If he lasted long enough he would try for the full fix but that was secondary. He had to start with Thanos and his army, fixing any damage to reality was next then.... He would offer to try to fix it from the start and let the Stones decide if he was worthy of a do-over. Even if it destroyed him just leaving a message in the right hands could save everything so he had to try to make the offer. It wasn't like the Stones weren't aware and alive in a way. They had to be so he would let them choose once the patch job was in place.
"And I... Am Iron Man," Tony said stubbornly before he snapped.
Tony lasted long enough to watch Thanos and his army fall to dust. He lasted long enough for Pepper to tell him he could let go and rest. Long enough for Peter to say goodbye and start to cry over him. Long enough for Rhodey to promise to protect them.... Long enough for Strange to get to his side with the instinctual knowledge of Time that Tony had done something more than just stop the threat.
"Tony," Stephen breathed.
"Stones get to choose if it works," Tony choked out for the Sorcerer. "I managed a patch job if not."
"If your gamble works?!" Stephen hissed.
"You're joining me," Tony said with a bloody smile as his vision faded towards black. "Can't fix it without the Guardian of Time."
"Oh you bastard," Stephen said ruefully. "Fair enough. If it works I can chew you out later. If it doesn't... Well you tried and that's more than most can say."
Tony gave off a breathless laugh as everything went black, his lungs and heart stopped and he died.
The rush of power that carried away Tony's soul snagged Stephen along for the ride.
Tony landed in his body with a vicious jolt, knocking the breath from his lungs as he landed hard on the ground. Coughing and wheezing he tried to get his breath back as he oriented. He didn't pay attention to who was around him so the first thing he said was picked up clearly by the press cameras.
"Fuck Time Travel! I'm getting really sick of the bad guys winning so that we have to risk reality just to fix whatever they damn well broke! Where the hell did I land anyway? Feels like I still have the arc reactor.... Damnit, that means before the Mandarin mess. Unless Loki has already shown up no one is going to believe me about the invasion attempts. Nevermind the Genocidal maniac trying to wipe out half the universe with stupid magic rocks for a power source," Tony groaned as he let his best friend help him to his feet.
"Tones? You good?" Rhodes asked warily.
"Yeah, what did I just do before I collapsed anyway?" Tony asked grumpily.
"You declared yourself Iron Man," One of the journalist offered helpfully. "Should we take what you said afterwards as rambling?"
"More like cursing when you've slammed your hand into a door or a wall," Tony snorted. "Look, if you just cut it off after my Iron Man declaration that would be great if you don't then I am going to have some difficult questions to answer for the spooks and magic users. On the plus side they can do the needed leg work to double check things. For right now? I just want a coffee and a nap to sleep off whatever transferred me back in time to the first time I claimed Iron Man. If you cut it then I get an extra day of peace to nap if you don't or this is going out live then I am probably going to be talking to some sorcerers pretty damn soon and definitely some spies."
The portal that opened up on the stage next to him answered Tony's questions.
"Live broadcast?" Tony asked ruefully.
"Yes, I am known as the Ancient One. I do believe we have much to talk about," a bald lady in yellow sorcery robes said rather firmly.
"Most of the people we are going to need don't have their power ups yet," Tony shrugged. "Oh and whichever idiot Mordo or Karl or whatever who holds so damn tight to the natural laws you teach at your Hogwarts is going to be a problem. He would rather let some Dark Lord of Darkness or whatever eat the planet than do what is needed to protect it so you are going to want to clean house."
"I take it my next student had difficulty with him after my death?" The Ancient One asked ruefully.
"Yup. That reminds me, if it worked the way those stupid magic rocks indicated he probably just woke up too. I would expect him to try to report in unless the same idiot really did scare him into thinking your school will kill him... And probably me, for the time travel," Tony told her. "Even if you do kill us circumstances actually warranted the time travel so at least let one of us give you as much as we can first."
"I'm afraid you just signed up for mandatory classes," the Ancient One said with no little exasperation. "You are as bad as Stephen."
"Can I get a tutor instead?" Tony asked with a chuckle. "I am going to have to revamp the company, fix what's wrong with my chest, and retool the entire electronics industry before we get close to the tech level we need to be able to handle some of what is coming. I also wouldn't mind borrowing some of your students to help out with training people against magic and mind control. It might be a killing offense among the magic users here but not everyone else in the universe feels the same way about mind control."
"Until you have reached Mastery you are getting a guard," the Ancient One said flatly at this news. "At least then you will know mostly what to avoid so that you don't get yourself killed when it comes to the Mystic Arts."
"Talk to Happy about that guard," Tony said, waving at Harold Hogan, his bodyguard. "He's the one to sort that out or at least get you integrated into the schedule if you insist on it."
A glowing electric bird floated down from the sky to hover in front of the Ancient One. She huffed and dispelled the message spell before considering the delivered information.
"It appears that my student made the trip a little more roughly than you did. However, you are correct. He did try to check in," the Ancient One sighed. "Do you have a rough timeline on events?"
"Uh, first invasion attempt in 2012? Let's see Thor showed up before that but the spooks mostly hid his arrival and return home.... Between then and now? Mostly normal stuff except for a few personal villains I had to deal with as Iron Man. We have a few years but it won't be enough for the real big bad. The 2012 invasion was stopped because the enemy general decided to twist under his mind control leash and practically force feed us a way to stop him while still playing villain. The real big bad came back for the stones here on Earth later and unfortunately letting any of them be taken off planet just hands them to the purple raisin faster," Tony answered honestly. "I don't know why but our planet seems to be some sort of nexus and pivot point for the rest of the mystic cosmic powers of the universe even if we are considered a backwater and primitive world."
Tony was doing this in front of the press specifically to get the information spread far and wide. They had to be ready this time. The glint in the Ancient One's eye told him she understood and agreed completely.
"What happened when this person came?" The Ancient One asked bluntly.
"They were here for that amulet but couldn't get it off your student. He called it a dead man spell," Tony shrugged. "He wouldn't give it up so they grabbed him. I and a hero who doesn't have his power up yet followed and got into the ship trying to rescue your student. We had to time it right considering the bad guy was torturing your student but we got him free and killed the bad guy. Unfortunately, I am very much not up on interstellar craft and their control systems so I couldn't get it off of autopilot. We crashed on a different planet. Your boy used some sort of shield to keep us alive during the crash and later used the amulet to try and figure out the win for when the real big bad showed up. Unfortunately he found that we had already passed the save point. We either won the boss fight or went with one of the back up plans he found and still lost half of the universe in the bargain."
"You lost the boss fight," the Ancient One grimaced. Tony nodded tiredly.
"Tony, you can't be serious," Rhodey said softly. He was pale and Tony could only give him a wan smile for reassurance.
"Hey, we didn't really get any warning last time. At least this time people are getting warned early," Tony snarked. "Believe me getting skewered with my own weapon and nearly dying from starvation on the way back while injured after the big bad pulled his kill half the universe trick was not fun. Oh, on the bright side I am pretty sure I remember where they found Captain America.... And his power up made the ice act like cryo stasis so he's still alive. I'm not working with him if the last go around was anything like this time though. Even if he hasn't done any of it yet there's some bad blood between us now."
"Complicated," the Ancient One sighed.
"When is time travel not complicated?" Tony retorted. "I'm only being this open about everything right away in case I get killed before the bad guys get dealt with. Also, before anyone starts demanding my armor each one has to be made down to the micrometer, custom built, and costs upwards of 73 million dollars for a single armor matched to a single user. If they gain ten pounds then the armor becomes useless and all of the systems are thrown off completely. I want to avoid the legal hassle this time with people trying to take my stuff when it wouldn't do anyone any good without me training the person and fitting it to them exactly in the first place."
A phone on one of the Sorcerers rang. The Master looked at the Ancient One who waved permission to answer it. When he did he looked confused for a minute then something clicked as he looked at both Tony and the Ancient One.
"Mr. Strange would like to know why you are not laying down and recovering from your trip when you have ten years or so before Thanos shows up," the Master informed them, listening to his phone warily
"Is he watching the broadcast?" Tony asked bemusedly.
"Yes, and he insists that if you don't at least take whatever pressure is hurting your chest off he will.... Why would you fill his lab with glitter?" The Master asked, confused.
"Glitter," Tony said with deep disgust. "That's dirty pool, Doc. Do you know how difficult it is to clean out a clean room properly that has been filled to the ceiling with glitter?! It's impossible to use as a clean room after that! Nevermind what happens when it gets into the ventilation system."
"His response is that he will also fill your bed with glitter if you don't at least sit down in a chair, doctors orders," the Master relayed.
"Give me the phone," Tony scowled. "If he's pulling the medical card I should probably hear it directly."
The Master handed over the phone with no little relief. Unfortunately for the impromptu audience they were unable to hear the other side of the conversation.
"What do you mean, I'm about to pass out?!" Tony demanded in outrage after listening for a minute. He ignored Rhodey getting him a chair and guiding him into it while still on stage. "...oh, yeah okay. Transfer strain. I guess that's why your teacher showed up directly and is practically hovering?.... Why would..... Damnit. Okay, I will sit down..... So that's why neither you nor your teacher tried to hustle me off stage?... No, yeah, needing to stay put to stabilize the energy sync up to avoid dying because of the transfer makes complete sense. It wasn't like we had tracks or something to guide us into our younger bodies.... No, no, that was a full body transfer and it was temporary, just long enough to retrieve the analogs so that we could pull a fix. They were supposed to be returned afterwards then the stones agreed to my request and we got this dropped in our laps.... I just wasn't expecting to land in front of a press conference, much less this one! If anything I thought I might land during the open heart surgery in a cave without painkillers.... Yes, I killed the idiots who pulled that.... No, you don't have to hunt the terrorists down for doing that.... Yes, I will let you check me over after you talk to your teacher.... Uh, no, not happening.... Damnit, Merlin we have a count down to deal with!"
Tony took the phone away from his ear to stare at it in disbelief.
"He hung up on me!" Tony said indignantly. He scowled at the phone even as he returned it to the amused unknown Master.
"I trust that my student explained why we are, how did you put it, hovering?" The Ancient One asked in open amusement.
"Yes," Tony said grumpily. "Even with the planetary shield stable something could still try to disrupt this transfer and make a dimensional breech. It would have been nice to know that was an extra risk before this happened though."
"Mandatory training, Mr. Stark," the Ancient One reminded him dryly. "If you are going to play with cosmic powers you might as well learn at least the safety basics."
"If I don't? Just to be clear on the consequences?" Tony asked curiously.
"Then we have to treat you like an overactive toddler with a big red button in easy reach that launches all of the world's missiles from every location they happen to be at once," the Ancient One said gravely. "It is far too easy to destroy things with such magics. That is why we are very strict on who we teach and any problem children are handled in-house as it were. Most people can not handle an enraged Sorcerer attacking so we self police and refuse involvement in any human on human clashes. We are protectors, Mr. Stark, not hired hands."
"Sure, I get it," Tony waved away her brief explanation. He had already gotten something similar from Stephen after all. "I remember the nightmare it was to establish Iron Man like that, a planetary protector instead of a tactical strike on whoever stepped out of line. Those fights to keep from being forced into being a weapon against whoever the people in power wanted gone were vicious."
"And yet you succeeded. Once you are trained you would be a credit to our Order should you choose to remain a member," the Ancient One observed. "However, that is a decision for another time. Your aura has stabilized somewhat but you are going to be quickly bedridden if we are not careful. Were you or my student the one who died during the trigger for the time travel?"
"Me," Tony said, looking away from her. "My body couldn't handle the power load for the fix I was trying to put in place. Thanos didn't just kill half the universe at random. He killed anyone relying on those who were dusted in the first place. People in surgery died on the table when their doctors disappeared. Cars, trucks, planes... they all crashed when they were suddenly without drivers or pilots or whatever. That doesn't even begin to cover what using that much power by the bad guy did to the field integrity of the universe.... My patch job when we tried to fix it dumped too much power through me and the time travel was.... Well it wasn't exactly deliberate, more like a half wished for do-over while dying. I was still attached to the damn stones and they ran with it.... Merlin died to the first snap, buying my life so that I could fix at least some of it later. It took five years and some serious resources but we finally got a fix that shouldn't have worked but did. Specifics on that cluster fuck should probably wait. Most of the pieces don't exist yet anyway."
"Your lack of training with the Mystic Arts did you no favors in handling so much power of such a type," the Ancient One grimaced. "There are going to be side effects for you and anyone else who was transferred back in time. We can only hope that you and my student will remain the only ones who had to experience any of that. Now, would you like me to open a portal to your home, or to our main temple, or would you prefer we take your car?"
"When am I going to actually pass out at this rate?" Tony asked suspiciously.
"You are stabilizing remarkably quickly. I would guess ten or twenty minutes," the Ancient One mused. "I merely thought you would prefer to go to the bathroom and get into some night clothes before you crashed. I would need a picture to take you directly home with a portal, however. I do believe you are familiar with how our Order uses them?"
"Yeah," Tony said unenthusiastically. "Kinda wish Merlin or Wong was here for this but if Wong was available he wouldn't remember me and Merlin is stuck in the same position. He's going to pass out too, I bet."
"Likely he already has," the Ancient One agreed blandly. "I am going to have to locate and secure him next. We can't exactly have my heir so vulnerable with such a threat on the horizon."
Tony couldn't stop himself from the sudden jaw cracking yawn that over took him. He fumbled his phone out and showed her a picture of his entryway at home before dropping it when he tried to put it back in his pocket. The Ancient One opened a portal for him and gestured him through. Tony curled a hand around his Rhodey-bear's arm and pulled him along with him through the portal, followed quickly by the Mystic Master who had lent him his phone. The Ancient One shook her head bemusedly as she closed that portal only to open another one for her group to step through, away from the official agents that tried to catch them.
~~~
Stephen breathed deeply as he tried to stay awake and watch the fiasco that was the interview and reveal of Iron Man. He was thankful that he had already been certified as a full doctor at this point because he was probably going to lose his job over passing out like this. Tony was probably going to insist on buying out his contract so that they could focus on saving the world. On the other hand the Ancient One might insist they reside at Kamar-Taj. Either way they had already made major changes to the timeline just because of Tony landing in the middle of a live interview and their phone argument in front of everyone. Even if they died now they had bought the world a chance.
A commotion distracted him from the chaos of Tony being sent home through a portal. There was shouting and alarm from the hallway and Stephen ached with exhaustion as he forced himself close to upright in his chair and turned to face whatever this was. If he was dying today he was damn well going to do it with some basic dignity. The flash of yellow robes that led him to looking tiredly up at his Master cut his strings and Stephen slumped back down in his chair.
"Oh my dear, you have pushed too hard," the Ancient One said gently as she knelt in front of him. The other two Masters escorting her took up protective positions around both of them while his co-workers shouted, demanding answers.
"Ancient One," Stephen greeted gruffly. "I'm afraid I can't stand to greet you just now."
"You may rest now, my student," the Ancient One told him, smirking faintly. "No one will think you walked out of here with us."
"That just means you're going to float my unconscious body down the hall," Stephen snorted in wry amusement. "Do as you will."
A light brush of her hand over Stephen's eyes had his eyes closing and the doctor letting go of consciousness. His Master was there and she would keep the others at bay until he could deal with things. If he was being taken for punishment then at least he would wake up somewhere he couldn't be harassed for magical time travel by his fellow doctors otherwise Tony would find him.
Stephen had understood what Tony had done when he had rambled about there being a chance as the inventor lay dying. In a way he was grateful that Tony had chosen to drag him along if only so that Stephen could make up for the choice he had to make on Titan, choosing Tony to die. They were back now and integrated with their younger selves. There was no returning except by going forwards the normal way.
Stephen vaguely felt the stretcher spell lift his body before he finished letting go. He fell asleep, trusting that his Master would take care of things while he rested.