╔══════════════════╗
GLORY DAYS
v. IT'LL PASS
╚══════════════════╝
synopsis. In which Riley Stark snaps the Infinity Gauntlet.
timeline. Alternate Universe, Endgame
Idea credits to BadassWithAFatass
○ ○ ○
RILEY STARK IS YOUNG when she first meets Death.
She's two years old, flailing through her mother and father's laboratory as the explosion ricochets. A strange energy warbles through the air, seeping through her skin until it infects her bones, her blood, the center of who she is. The Grim Reaper watches closely. He passes through the house so soundlessly that Riley wouldn't have noticed him if she tried. But she does feel frost creep over her burning home as he draws nearer. Death extends a hand for her, then halts. He senses what the sun has given the child, so he scoops her mother in his arms instead. And when Riley opens her mouth to cry, Death shakes his head. Next time, he promises.
He keeps his promise, though he doesn't clarify what next time means. He says it every time he comes to visit, every time Riley watches the people she knows, the few she loves, die. Riley does not grow up without witnessing Death at every corner. Every milestone, every birthday, every changing season. Riley doesn't understand what Death is for many years, only that he takes what makes her warm and leaves frost in his wake.
Next time. There's always a next time, but it's never for her.
It becomes a game of waiting, of cat and mouse. Every day, Riley walks the tightrope, and every day, Death waits for her to plummet, if only to catch her and take her away. He stands with his arms wide, scythe glistening in the hellfire that keeps Riley alive. When the aliens come, when the state crumbles, when everything that could go wrong goes wrong, Death waits for his chance to snatch Riley up.
But Riley is quick. She learns not to fear what he might do to her, but rather, she comes to fear what he will take from her instead. When her loved ones begin to die over and over again, one after the other, Riley grows furious. Why them? Always the same question. Why not me?
She knows Death is waiting to take her. She sees him everywhere she goes, stalking the corners filled with the most laughter and joy. He's a virus, that Grim Reaper. Riley only ever thinks of him when she is surrounded by the people she loves, the people she protects. The thought of losing them plagues even the happiest of hours. Next time, Riley remembers. There may not be a next time for them.
Next time. And yet, it's never her.
It's why she thinks, for a sliver of a second, that she might survive when she takes the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos and snaps her fingers, just as he did five years ago.
It works. She kills Thanos, kills his army. The fighting ceases, the gunfire quiets, the noise stops. Except Riley is still screaming.
The eternal energy of the Infinity Stones surges through her, slicing into her arm. The stones hiss in her ears as they sear her skin, clawing into her to drink her sunlight, to rejuvenate themselves one last time. The pain shears with such violence that Riley, in the fog of her agony, thinks that she's never known true pain until this. She has been killed and revived and sliced and shot and ripped in half, yet nothing compares to the vengeful bite of the dying Infinity Stones.
The Gauntlet melds into her skin, making a home of her body like a parasite. Riley knows this, despite the ringing in her ears, despite the burn of her nerves and the hoarse cries shredding her vocal cords apart, because she can feel Tony trying to tear it off her. He's as desperate as the stones. The war is over, yet Riley is still fighting. Fighting the stones, fighting to keep her heart beating, fighting Tony as her body resists letting go of the Gauntlet.
"Talk to me, FRIDAY," Tony commands, voice trembling. He's trying to contain himself. There's no use in breaking down now. There's still time. He's not losing her, not when he just got her back. "JO, I need a full body scan NOW."
The battlefield, streaked in soot and blood, is eerily silent as the heroes of Earth rush to come closer, to see what could possibly be going wrong now. They won, didn't they? Didn't they just win? Then, why does it feel like they're losing again?
"What were you thinking?" Tony mutters. "What were you—? You shouldn't have— God, how do I get this thing off of you? Hold on, Ri. Hang on, okay?"
"T-T-T," Riley tries to squeak through clenched teeth. The debris behind her digs into a wound in her back, but it hardly makes a difference now. Her diaphragm spasms as she struggles to greedily breathe in. That's all she needs to do. Breathe in. Breathe out. In, and out. But she can't. Tears wash the grime on her cheeks as JOCASTA blears life alert statuses to Tony. "T-Tony— Dad—"
"Don't try to talk," Tony warns. His hands and suit are drenched in Riley's blood now. "Just— Just try to— I need to— DAMMIT! GET THIS THING OFF HER!" Riley cries out as he tries again. The Gauntlet doesn't budge. "COME ON!"
The heroes draw nearer, but Riley can't see out of her right eye anymore. Her focus is on Tony until she hears Pepper on her left. She's doing that thing where she rambles uncontrollably, voice tottering like she's trying not to cry. For a second, Riley thinks that's a good sign. Pepper always does that; it's her nervous tick. It's normal. And if there's an ounce of normalcy in this battlefield, then maybe Riley still has a chance—
Riley screams a soundless cry, veins bulging against her neck. The Gauntlet won't budge. Stop, Riley thinks, but she can't say it. Stop, stop, STOP, STOP, STOP.
"Tony," Steve warns, blue eyes frazzled. He pushes himself to stumble closer, despite his exhaustion. He reaches for Tony's shoulder. "Tony—"
Tony swats him off. "Don't—"
"You're hurting her—"
"YOU DON'T THINK I KNOW THAT?"
"Tony—!"
"What, Steve? What do you want from me? Let me try—!"
Don't treat me like I'm dying, Riley barely manages to think. She's weakly frustrated that no one is reading her mind. Stop, stop, stop, stop.
"You—" Wanda says, coming closer. Her eyes are wide, crimson hexes sparking against her palms frenetically. Despite it, she keeps her hands close to her chest. She wants to help, but she also knows that she doesn't know how to. She can't control herself. But Wanda hears Riley loud and clear, and she knows that this, at least, she can do. "Y-You're scaring her. Stop."
Riley can guess how horrible she looks, lying there with everyone she's ever loved surrounding her. They crouch and tower beside her, yelling and whispering at the same time. All Riley wants is for them to talk to her. Because she can feel something in her letting go, and she can't— She can't go— She can't let this be her last memory.
Natasha is the only one who senses this. She's the only one who can keep herself composed. She scoops Riley's left hand in her own, and for the first time, Natasha realizes her hand isn't that much bigger than Riley's anymore. She's not a little girl anymore. And yet, she is, isn't she? To Natasha, she always will be.
"Don't be scared. I got you," Natasha tells her. She knows what's coming. She knows it before the others. This is as much a routine in her life as it is in Riley's. That doesn't make this any easier. "Hey, you did good. You did really good, Маленькое солнышко." Little sun.
Peter Parker somehow manages to understand what Natasha's doing. He pushes through the group, and kneels before Riley. It's hard, but he knows that Riley doesn't need them to remind her of what she's going through.
"If you c-could've seen yourself, you'd never let us forget it," Peter jokes. He lays a hand on her knee to remind her that he's there, that everyone's with her, and she isn't alone. He wishes he could keep his voice calmer. "I can hear it now. We're never gonna get through a-another t-training session again without you bringing it up."
Riley grates out a wheeze. Her last laugh.
"There she is," Clint chimes. The smile he attempts almost makes Riley want to laugh again. Whether that's his intention or not, Riley knows what they're trying to do—keep her calm, ready, as happy as she can be when half of her body has practically been blown away. They're realizing what's coming.
"Just like any other day," Bruce adds, as if to reinforce this.
Thor places his hammer next to her, just under her disintegrated forearm, as if she's holding it. "All of us are here," he promises.
"Together," Steve says, and it's the only thing he can get out as he looks at her.
You're not alone, he seems to be telling her. It's okay, he's trying to say.
"T-Together?" Riley whispers, and it's almost laughable. She can feel herself slipping away. The only one leaving is her, alone.
Steve can only say that word, nodding. "Together."
Riley knows it's bad when Tony forces himself to give up on the Gauntlet. He squeezes her shoulder, the same way he always does. Riley winces, the edges of her sight blackening. That sliver of comfort vanishes like it was never there. The Grim Reaper has been following her throughout the fight, but he has enough room in his arms for one more. A chill creeps over her.
It's time, Death says, and Riley knows he's here for her.
Ironically, Riley is still young the last time she meets Death.
"I-I can't—" Riley tries to say. "F-Feel—"
"It's okay, sweetheart," Pepper says, sniffling. She presses her forehead to Riley's. "Rest. You've done enough."
"I'm sc-scared," Riley whimpers, and she doesn't know why. She sees Death all the time. She sees him more than her own reflection. But she doesn't fear for herself. She fears for everyone else. Who will take care of them if she isn't here? Who will keep everyone in line, connected, together? Is there something else she can do now? Something she can say? Did she do enough? Did she do everything she could have done?
"What are you scared of? You did everything right, Tink," Tony quietly says. "You always do." He tucks her hair behind her ear and caresses her cheek with his thumb. "Everything's alright."
"Everything's okay?" Riley whispers.
"Everything's okay," Tony promises.
Riley smiles, as small as she can muster it, and when she takes her last breath, it's in relief.
○ ○ ○
Tony's final words to his daughter are a lie.
He doesn't know it then, but when the funeral comes, he knows he lied to her. Seeing that sweet smile, hearing the remnants of her warm laugh, he doesn't know how he managed to do it. Maybe because part of him wanted to believe that everything would be alright.
This isn't the first time Riley has died, funnily enough, but this feels permanent. It is. Of course, it is. Tony is the first and last person to look at her body in her casket, eyes shut, the corner of her lip still upturned, just a centimeter.
The invisible soldier doesn't die quietly. When word gets out about everything Riley has been through, every dirty detail and scar and horror up until the second her fingers snap, the world begins to grieve, and Tony begins to suffocate in his grief. She's everywhere. At every turn, every news outlet, every echoing voice in the street. She's in the couch in the living room, in the screwdriver in the garage, in the burn marks in the kitchen, in the eyes of Morgan. She's everywhere. Tony scrapes whatever pieces he can of her in hopes that he can put her back together, in hopes he can somehow bring her back.
But Riley is not a machine or a suit or a piece of fabric that can be sewn. She is a person. She is his kid. And she is gone.
There are two funerals. First, a private one for friends and family. Here, Natasha realizes how bittersweet it is, that after a childhood of perpetual loneliness, Riley found all the right people she deserved all along. They are here—dozens of them—and she is not, and it drives Natasha crazy because Riley should be here to see it. To realize that she did it. She escaped that loneliness.
Natasha doesn't speak at the funeral, even when Pepper asks her to twice. She feels like she doesn't have the right to. All she can think about is how hard she used to be on Riley, how many years she was cold when she should have done more, done better. She mourns in regret. Riley will never know how much Natasha admires her.
Natasha is the first to grasp what's happened, and she is the first to get angry when Nick Fury attends the funeral.
"You have some nerve showing up here," Natasha jeers, speaking for the first time that day. She shoves her finger at Fury's chest, warning him to step away. He has no right appearing here, infesting the Stark Cabin with his presence. "How can you show up here after everything you put that kid through? How dare you mourn her when you killed her the day you met her?"
"We're all grieving, Romanoff," Fury tries to say. It goes ignored.
"I told you," Natasha rasps. "The first day you brought her in, I told you that taking away her choice to live a quiet, peaceful life wasn't up to you. I told you that's exactly the kind of thing they did to little girls in the Red Room." Natasha doesn't care that she's at a funeral. She doesn't care that everyone is watching in horror. She's pissed, and she needs to take it out on someone. "Is that all she was to you? Disposable? Good enough until the next spectacle comes around?"
"You know that's not—"
"Where have you been, Fury?" Natasha screams. "Where were you when you faked your death, and Riley went crazy thinking you really were gone? Where were you when you stopped calling, and she stood around waiting for someone to tell her what to do because she didn't know how else to live her life? If she didn't have us—" Natasha balls her hands into fists. "She killed herself for you. She died because of you—"
Bruce approaches them. "Let's take this outside," he weakly says. "Please." He doesn't have it in him to fight.
"I didn't tell her to snap her damn fingers," Fury says instead. His one good eye is rimmed red, so faint that you might miss it if you weren't paying attention. He mourns, but he's never been the type to express it. "Don't take that away from her, everything she did for us. You, of all people, don't get to take that from her."
Natasha's heart drops. She knows what he accuses her of. Her former cruelty, her former callousness. She knows it because she's been beating herself up over it for what feels like a lifetime.
"I pushed her because I didn't want her to think S.H.I.E.L.D. or any government association was a safe haven. You raise someone in a box like that, and they never want to leave," Natasha snaps. She hates that her voice cracks, hates how she sniffles as she looks up at Fury. "You spent this war, and every war before that, hiding behind a little girl who just wanted to make you—make all of us—proud. She didn't have to sacrifice herself for us, but dammit, she did. She spent her life thinking she wasn't good enough for any of us because you— we—" Natasha takes a sharp breath. "Her blood is on our hands. But you are the last person who gets to mourn her. You're a coward, Fury. She was the sun, and you are a coward."
Natasha leaves. It's the last time any of the Avengers see her face.
Clint doesn't find it any easier to mourn. He's one of the last people that gets asked about how he's doing. No one ever remembers that before Fury, before Natasha and Tony and even Steve, before anyone else, for a long time, it was just Clint and Riley.
He helped raise her. He watched her back like she was a grown-up and not a little kid because he knew it made her happy. When Clint dreamed of having a family, he always included Riley in that picture without realizing it. Now he sees her in his kids, and he can't go home. He sees her in the sky, and he can't go outside either.
Clint never watches another sunrise or sunset again. He doesn't feel like he can. It just doesn't shine the way it used to. But when he's able to look at his children again, he tells them all about what it was like. He tells them how it used to shine, brighter than anything he ever thought possible.
Bruce is the only one that pretends he's okay. But most nights, a few times a week, he likes to pull out that playlist he and Riley once made together to help soothe the Hulk. He'll shut his eyes, let the music play, and replay the conversations he and Riley used to have over sonatas and crescendoes. He doesn't break until the second funeral.
The second funeral is for the public. The Avengers are invited, but none of them show up. They decide to instead reunite at the Stark residence to spend the day together. Most decline that one, too, Clint included. None of them know where Natasha is. Steve hasn't heard from her in a long time. He doesn't know if he ever will. He almost hopes he won't if it means the distance will bring her peace.
Steve should be used to this part, the transition. He and Bucky talk about it all the time, their unique situation, where time moves too fast for their tastes. Now that Sam is Captain America, and Bucky joins him on his adventures, Steve has run out of things to do. It's peaceful. Or it should be. But every day, he takes out his little flip phone, scrolls down his short contact list, and clicks on Riley's name. Sometimes, he listens to her old voicemails. Usually, he just calls her. He has photographs, and he can search up videos of her any time, but there's something about a voicemail that's different. They're her last, personalized messages to him. They're like letters you can hear. Now that she's gone, all he wants is to hear her voice again.
He calls her the day before the second funeral. No one answers, though he does receive a text from Riley.
Riley Stark
Stop.
— Tony
It doesn't stop Steve. He calls her again, the morning of the second funeral. The number's been disabled, and the voicemails are gone.
It makes Steve angry.
On the day of the second funeral, he drives to Tony's cabin. The others—the ones who are still responding to each other, at least—are supposed to meet up for moral support. Thor and Bruce are already there when Steve shows up.
"You had no right," Steve barks as he enters the house. It's a mess, at least by Pepper's standards. It's nowhere near as messy as it should be, but with robots at your convenience, Steve doesn't question it. He makes a beeline for Tony in the living room. "You had no right—!"
"Stop," Thor says, grabbing him before Steve can throw himself at Tony. "Stop!"
"Don't," Steve warns. He shoves Thor off of himself, and Thor yields without much effort. He doesn't look it, but he's fragile, too. "Don't touch me—"
"It's a hard day for all of us," Bruce joins. "Let's just try to get through this together, alright?"
Tony barks a bitter laugh. He looks horrible, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. The smile he wears carves out his face; it doesn't belong. "Together," Tony mocks, his breath stenched with alcohol. "You lot love that word, don't you?"
"Stop!" Thor says again. "It's hardly been five minutes, and you're already going at each other. We've lost before. We've mourned before. This isn't the first time—"
"That supposed to make this any easier?" Tony scoffs. "You think it should be easier. Hell, I think it should be, too. I've lost her before. But it's not. It doesn't get any easier. You can't recover from something like this just because you've seen someone die before, Thor. It's not the same—"
"Don't act like you're the only one that lost her," Steve says. He's still gripping his phone in his hand. He can't bring himself to put it down. "This isn't easy on any of us. You don't get to— You don't know how any of us have been coping. Those voicemails—"
"Give it up, Steve!" Tony yells. "You weren't the one hearing that damn thing go off over and over again every night! You have any idea how it feels, hearing that thing from her room, thinking that nothing happened? For a split second, you think to yourself, Nothing happened. Riley's asleep in her room. And then the realization sinks in over and over and over and over again! You don't understand—"
"Enough!" Pepper finally shouts, stepping back into the room after she sends Happy and Morgan outside. "Please. Enough yelling. Enough fighting. Just..." She combs a hand through her blonde hair, drained. "This is the last thing Riley ever wanted. She just wanted you all here, together. Can't we give her that? Just for one day?"
"Everyone's split up, Pep," Tony says, this time more quietly. "If she didn't want us apart, she shouldn't have—"
"Don't say that," Bruce says. "You shouldn't say that."
"It's the truth! Isn't it?" Tony bursts. "She's the only reason we ever stayed in contact when we didn't need to. All of us. When you refused to sign the Accords, Nat would call her and let her know you all were okay. When you were on one side of the world, and she was on the other, she only needed one phone call before she'd book the flight over. When we weren't working on something together, she'd take the time to visit all of us, one at a time, because the rest of us couldn't be bothered to do it ourselves!"
"She was the best of us! Is that what you want to hear?" Bruce demands. "There's no point in arguing. She's gone. Riley is gone. There's nothing we can do to change that."
"That's what I thought, too," Tony slowly says. "But then I remember which one of us had the Gauntlet before she did."
Bruce cringes. This is something Bruce has been struggling not to think about. He thinks about it too often, that if he had just used the Gauntlet the right way the first time he had it on... If he had just thought to bring everyone back and somehow ensure that nothing else would go wrong, as if he could've predicted that final war...
Riley might still be here, alive, visiting his lab uninvited, making her stupid jokes, and insisting that she's smarter than him and his seven Ph.D.s.
"You think I don't know that?" Bruce says. "You think you're the only one figuring out where everything went wrong? I ran the calculations, too, Tony! I'm still running the numbers! Look at all of us." He motions to each person in the room. "We're all botched science experiments, one-in-a-billion what-if scenarios! We're all people who shouldn't be here, yet we beat the odds. We beat the odds, and she couldn't. How does that make sense? How did the rest of us survive, and she didn't?"
Thor comes to Bruce's defense. "None of us had any idea that a fight would come after that. Bruce couldn't have known. None of us could have known," Thor insists.
Thor's been taking her death the best, only because at this point, he truly has nothing left to lose. His family, Asgard. One more death won't make it hurt any more or less. But he misses the girl, and he isn't hiding it. He's simply holding his head against his body, as high as he can. If he looks down now, he knows he'll never get back up again. Riley taught him that—that you can keep getting hit, and you can keep losing, and you can be afraid, but you have to keep going if nothing else.
"I know you're hurting," Thor adds. "I've spent the last five years hurting. We all have. I understand. But bearing this rage won't make any of you feel any better."
"And what will, Thor?" Tony demands.
"No, he's right," Bruce says, although he doesn't really believe it. He doesn't continue, doesn't let anyone else get a word out. He turns on his heel and leaves the house. He knows what happens when he lets his anger get the best of him. Even in this form, green and tame, he can feel something in him itching to come out. He's been feeling this way a lot more often now that Riley's gone.
Thor goes after him, not without nodding to Pepper empathetically. When the two head into space a few weeks later, Tony and Steve don't see them again for a long, long time. It's not right, leaving one another after a fight, but the Avengers were never good at goodbyes. It's why they're called Avengers, isn't it?
"Rolling over as always, Banner," Tony scoffs. "Typical."
"Tony, please," Pepper pleads. She comes to his side, hand rubbing along his arm. "I know it's not easy. And it never will be easy again. But there's no point. Riley hated the fighting more than anything."
An uneasy silence descends upon the house. The news is on, a low vibration in the background as it plays at the lowest volume possible. Images of Riley's smiling face flash across the screen as people line every street in every state and every country imaginable. It's as beautiful as it is strange to Tony.
None of these people really know Riley. Not the way he or his teammates do. They don't know about the late nights and the inside jokes and the movie marathons. They don't know about the music she listened to or the nervous ticks she had or her ability to turn every waking moment into a memory worth cherishing. They don't know her, yet they know the memory of her, and they're celebrating it. That's more than what Tony or Steve or any one of them have been able to do.
"Okay," Tony finally says. "I'm sorry." He looks toward Steve. "I'm sorry I disabled her number. I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. I'm sorry. Alright?" He takes a deep breath. Something in him wavers, that odd feeling you get when you're about to cry again. "I'm—" He takes in another shallow breath. "I'm—"
"It's okay," Steve promises, and he's by Tony's side again. Funny how it always ends up being the two of them. "It's okay, take it easy—"
"I just— I don't feel like I can— Like I can breathe." Tony clutches his chest. He knows this feeling. He gets it all the time. He has for years. This tightness, this ache. He collapses on the inside every day, and he has for the last decade. "I don't— I don't think I can—"
Steve and Pepper guide him to the couch, but the pair don't let go of Tony. Up close, Steve doesn't realize how tired she looks until then. He doesn't often think of her, as terrible as it sounds, at least not in terms of grieving and mourning. Steve has only ever been able to think about himself and how he'll cope with the great loss they all share.
"It's okay," Pepper tells her husband, with a soft, easy tone. "Take it easy. In and out. I know it's hard. It's hard for me, too." She presses her head against his trembling shoulder. "I keep thinking about the day we all signed the papers. I thought it would be easier, being a mom to a kid that's all grown up. But I keep looking at the photos of her—" Her breath hiccups. "It just, it keeps hitting me how young she really was. There's so much she was supposed to do."
Steve keeps waiting for Tony to tell her to stop talking. He doesn't. The sound of Pepper's voice, the mere presence of her being there, might be the only thing that's keeping him from really falling apart. And if he falls apart, that's it. Morgan might as well grow up without a father, even if he's right there.
But Pepper is here, and she won't let him go. She keeps him standing. She's always kept him standing, now that Steve thinks about it. They don't have to move. If they can just stand together for a little while, maybe that can be enough to get them through this grief—even if it lasts forever.
"But she lived more than any of us," Pepper adds. "She was kind, and she was good. And no matter what happens now, I can keep going knowing that we gave her the best years we could. All of us." She kisses Tony's shoulder. "In and out, Tony. In and out."
Tony breathes in shakily, eyes squeezed shut. "I miss her," he whispers. "Every day, all the time. Even when she was here, I missed her. Funny how that works. She was—" He doesn't know how to say the words. He's still not good at that part. "She was my shadow. She was always there, and now that she's not—" Another sharp breath. "I miss her."
"I do, too," Pepper says. "But this will pass, and before you know it, you'll be able to think of her and smile again, just like you used to."
"It'll pass?" Tony repeats. He sounds so fragile. It sounds nothing like him. For a split second, Steve realizes how much Riley takes after Tony, after all.
"Yeah," Steve says. He sighs. He looks toward the mantel, where a photo of Tony, Riley, and that boy Steve met once, Peter Parker, are huddled together, smiling from ear to ear. Steve grimaces, but then he forces himself to smile weakly. "It'll pass."
○ ○ ○
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Damn wtf this was so hard to write </3
I know there are so many characters I kinda left out of this, but tbh I knew all the REAL angst would come from the OGs. I wanted to write Peter into the end, but I liked where I left it too much to say more. Death is weird, grieving is weird, and thankfully, this is an AU, SO NONE OF THIS MATTERS. WIPE YOUR TEARS GUYS IT'S FINE AND NO I'M NOT CRYING SHUT UP?
Although there's a severe lack of Peter in this, I think it's special that he was the last person to make Riley laugh before she died. Somehow, (to me, at least), that little interaction says so much more than I could've said with a million extra paragraphs. Same with Wanda being the one to read Riley's mind and tell everyone she's scared. It's the little things..... *insert 500000 crying emojis*
I also think it's really special that in the end, Steve and Tony are the ones that are there for each other (along with Pepper, of course, the only person who's ever really understood Tony best). Despite their history of fights and disagreements, Riley brings them together one more time. Even when it's cloudy, the sun's still shining <3
WHEW. ANYWAY. Let me go write some fluff to make myself feel better.