#ironstrange is endgame | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

darsynia · 1 year

Text

Goodnight, Farewell, and Amen | Oneshot

(Tony Stark/Stephen Strange Angst)

TBH I'm too wrung out by this to make a graphic. Yes, the title is referencing the finale of M*A*S*H*.

Summary: In a world where your Soulmate's final words spoken to you are written on your body, Tony Stark's aren't the typical goodbye. When he finally understands what they mean, he and his soulmate are out of time.

Notes: This is for my @avengersbingo square, Soulmate AU

I first saw the concept of Soulmate words being the last words your soulmate says to you in a story by JazzJo for the West Wing fandom, all the madness in my soul, which is achingly beautiful. This story uses the trope a completely different way, but please read hers.

Warnings: Canonical character death, Angst

Length: 1,719

Tags (guessing!): @starryeyes2000 @deepbatched @cabinofcontentment @chickensarentcheap @themaradaniels @starksbf

Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen

If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.

Tony has read those words on his skin over and over so often that he feels like they are indeed etched on his soul, not just his upper thigh. They’re the last words his soulmate will ever speak to him, and sure, he’s grateful they’re not the typical goodbye that seventy percent of the world bears on their bodies somewhere. The problem is, he can’t tell if there’s a hint in there, some kind of prophecy he could follow.

There’s a whole branch of psychology devoted to that, the deciphering of fate, the question of whether you’ve already lost the battle to prevent your death or your soulmate’s (or perhaps equally painfully, your separation, never to talk to each other again) once the words are spoken. Tony’s been haunted since his parents’ deaths by their final words to each other, confused call-outs during a traumatic moment. They’d expected those phrases would be spoken at the end of a long life, perhaps in hospice care-- but no, it was on the side of a road in misery, with no help and no hope.

After their deaths, Tony had wasted some of his inheritance on private investigators, trying to find the person he’d met when visiting his dad at an office building he no longer remembers. That person (oddly dressed, accent unplaceable) had told an eight year old Tony Stark that he would only know his soulmate for less than twenty-four hours. He’d loved that, something unique and different-- but when he’d excitedly told his mother, she’d gotten so angry that he was never allowed to go to that building ever again.

Now decades later, he’s got the arc reactor, Pepper, a host of superheroic friends, and the knowledge of life on other planets. Tony has figured out that the place he’d been banished from was SHIELD, and he imagines his mother was angry about the idea that her son would grow up a womanizer like his father. She’d probably thought that the prophecy was a jibe towards her, rather than a real prediction, but at seventeen, nineteen, all the way up to twenty-one when he’d taken over the company, Tony had wanted to find that person and know the answer for himself.

He’d never found them, but the strangeness of his soulmate’s last words has sat with him for years. Tony had done just as his mother had feared, pretending he was searching for his soulmate by spending night-long chunks of time with countless women. Plenty of them had tried to play it up during their morning farewell, so often that he’d learned to leave them satiated and sleeping, with no chance to speak those words as some sort of lasting incantation.

Pepper’s own words are mysterious enough, in a way the two of them don’t address (‘It’s been a wonderful second life, Darling’ is… nothing he can imagine ever saying). It seems possible that they are each other’s hearts but not souls. After a life as exciting as theirs, that’s okay.

They plan their wedding as they watch friends and loved ones make choices about their future in no small part weighed down by the lettering on their bodies. Then a man walks out of a golden, sparking circle and changes Tony’s life forever.

Stephen Strange’s interruption is actually a ‘saved by the bell’ moment, as Tony had been in the middle of trying to remove his foot from halfway down his throat, regarding Pepper, his arc reactor, and pregnancy. Strange clearly takes an instant dislike to him, probably on reputation, and Tony leans in. He’s heard enough comparisons made between the two of them (intellect, snark-ability, goatee style) that he’d be offended if there wasn’t at least a slight feeling of rivalry there.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t on the same side, though, and when the chips are down and Strange is in peril, Tony follows behind to save him. It’s the right thing for that moment, even if it’s not the right thing for Pepper or Peter. After almost fifty years on this Earth, Tony’s learned that there’s almost never an action that’s unequivocally good for everyone involved.

Tony’s reminded of that as he’s forced to watch Strange bargain the Time Stone for his life-- the exact thing he’d said he wouldn’t do. The reasoning is clear, but as Tony feels the magic reversing his deathblow, it’s confusing, maddening, even heartbreaking.

Their fight is over, both the physical one and the ongoing argument that’s sparked between himself and Strange since they’d met barely hours before. Strange retreats into a mental world of his own as the rest of them stand stunned and silent-- and then… dust.

The words that haunt the next five years of Tony’s life belong to Peter and Stephen.

I don’t want to go.

There was no other way.

One represents a failure of Tony’s past, the other a potential failure in the future-- because he knows Strange had firmly believed his promise about sacrificing their lives for the greater good. If there had been another way, he wouldn’t have given up the Time Stone. Stephen Strange had seen a need for Tony’s life to continue instead of his own, but he’d offered no blueprint, no contingency plan.

That kind of trust is staggering, and Tony’s not sure he’s worthy of it.

He builds a life. In Peter and Stephen’s honor, Tony keeps his eye on two roles in particular: father figure and friend. He’s pretty sure he’s shitty at both, but the next years give him practice at being a father and a partner, at least, and he does okay without the requisite explosions in his wake.

What’s always there is the desire to make something of Stephen Strange’s sacrifice. That’s what draws him to the Avengers compound after sending Steve, Natasha, and Scott away. It’s what throws him back in time, what forces him to think on his feet-- because he can do it. He can bring the infuriating sorcerer back, along with everyone else. That’s the reason he’s alive, and consequently the reason everyone else isn’t. Because Tony’s read up on the man. He’s gone and spoken to people. Stephen Strange had been a lot like him: an arrogant man glorying in his niche until a devastating injury forced him into a new life. He had been a doctor, and over and over again, Tony’s heard the same thing from the people who knew him:

Stephen Strange was all about preserving life. He wouldn’t let half of the universe die just to save one man. Not unless it was the path to saving everyone.

It’s maybe a lot to live up to, now that Tony’s standing next to a compound in ruins, staring down another fight with Thanos.

Tony’s riding high, after seeing so many people brought back to life. He’s hugged Peter and fought next to Pepper, watched everyone work together to keep Thanos at bay as they work to send the Stones out of his reach. He sees Strange and lands nearby; there are years of Things To Say crowding his throat, but the most important one comes first.

“You said one out of fourteen million we win, yeah?” Strange’s expression is full of dread, and Tony almost falters, but he can’t. He can’t. “Tell me this is it.”

“If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen,” Stephen says.

Tony’s bluster drops away. There’s no mistaking those words. Strange isn’t acting like anything momentous occurred, but something deep inside Tony is screaming that there’s one more thing to say. Probably the last thing. He wishes there was time to make it mean more, maybe even make it absurd, or at least make it memorable, but there isn’t.

He’s not that much of a dick anyway, Tony decides. “You better be right,” he says-- and there it is. Stephen freezes, recognition and understanding flushing his face.

The following moment is short, but somehow it’s still a decent percentage of the time they’ve gotten to spend together. As Tony takes off to continue fighting, seven words reverberate in his head.

One of us is going to die. One of us is going to die.

The weight of that knowledge is almost enough to negate his repulsors, and the longer Tony battles with it dragging him down, the more he understands the shape it’s going to take.

The fact is, Stephen Strange has already died for him.

He’d died without knowing what Tony has feared since he was eight, that the soothsayer was right. Tony has already spent less than a day with his soulmate. If Howard Stark hadn’t interrupted the conversation right after that revelation, would he have learned a second, more triumphant secret? Would Tony have known since he was a child that he’d bring his soulmate back to life? What that would have done to his confidence, over the years?

He’s forced to compartmentalize all of this as he keeps fighting, and whether finding his soulmate has anything to do with it or not, Tony’s on his face in the dirt when the worst happens: Thanos is wearing the gauntlet again. Morgan’s face swims in front of his eyes, and Tony looks around to see who’s left to make a last great stand with him. That’s when he catches Stephen’s eye.

There’s a whole unlived lifetime in that look, in the seconds it takes for Strange to give Tony a single, miserable, hopeful signal.

This is the one.

‘I know what to do,’ Tony can’t say. ‘I owe you one,’ goes unsaid, too. When the time comes, when he’s picking what to say before the snap that saves his wife, his daughter, his soulmate, and the rest of the universe, Tony hopes they each understand what he says in their own context.

For Pepper, it’s an apology. He never could stop.

For Morgan, it’s an attempt to be her hero, one last time.

For Stephen, it’s about inevitability. He was the guardian of the Time Stone, and that’s the one thing the two of them never had: time. Without those roles, they never would have met. Without their deaths, the world would be a different place entirely.

He hopes they’ll remember him.

“I’m sorry, Pep.”

#avengersbingo #ironstrange #tony stark x stephen strange #ironstrange angst #tony stark fanfiction #stephen strange fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #angst #endgame feels #soulmate au

74 notes · View notes