ripped at every edge (but you're a masterpiece) (Hp x Mcu) by Lissy

Chapter 27: i hope i never lose you

Summary:

Tony struggles with the aftermath of Loki's game.

Chapter title:
Cornelia Street - Taylor Swift
Notes:

Timeline:
[x] (2012) The Avengers
[x] (2013) Iron Man 3
[x] (2013) Thor: The Dark World
[ ] (2014) Captain America: The Winter Soldier; Guardians of the Galaxy; Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2
[ ] (2015) Avengers: Age of Ultron; Ant-Man
[ ] (2016) Captain America: Civil War; Spider-Man: Homecoming
[ ] (2017) Doctor Strange; Black Panther; Thor: Ragnarok
[ ] (2018) Avengers: Infinity War

Hari's so small in his arms. Her breaths are deep, even, eyes closed and lashes fluttering against her cheeks. Tony can't help but stare, desperate to see the proof that she's alive and breathing. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees that awful green light hit her.

Avada Kedavra.

Instantaneous death.

Hari survived it, obviously, but the memory of it haunts him. It lingers in the back of his mind, never far from his thoughts, and he tightens his arms around her. She makes a small noise in her sleep but otherwise doesn't wake up. Tony doesn't blame her; she'd cried herself to sleep in his arms, exhausted, and he wonders how he'd feel reliving some of his most private memories.

A shudder rips through him.

He needs to get stronger. This little visit to Asgard only proves how weak he is. Just about everything that's been accomplished was done so by Hari, and he loves how capable she is, wouldn't have it any other way, but that doesn't change the fact that he's... useless. He'd created the suitcase suit to take with him whenever he was on-the-go, but the activation time is simply too high. Worse yet, this latest suit was supposed to be the answer to his problems.

There's not much that can leave Tony stumped. He's a genius and his mind whirls in a million different directions before the average Joe can fumble through one. And yet, ever since becoming Iron Man, there's been situation after situation that's left him scrambling for answers, solutions, anything to fix the problem.

The last time Tony had been this frustrated with his inability to think of a solution had been when faced with his own demise. Palladium poisoning is a rough way to go; if he could give it zero stars on Yelp, he would. He pulled that victory out of his ass; a deus ex machina that even he hadn't seen coming.

And that's the crux of the issue, isn't it? So long as Thanos is out there, the problems are going to keep coming. They're going to be volatile, unpredictable, and there are people out there that are going to look to the Avengers, to Iron Man, to be their deus ex machina. But as advanced as his technology is, as state of the art as the suit is, Tony himself is human. And that's not something likely to change.

Right?

Tony goes very still. Hari snuggles deeper into his arms, face smooth and even and carefree, but Tony can't even really enjoy it right now because his mind is a million lightyears away. His own personal history says he should derail this particular train of thought before it arrives at its destination, before he gets too invested, before it's too late to turn back.

And yet...

The image of Pepper falling to her death is forever seared in his mind; skin glowing orange, fear on her face, hand reaching out as if he could still save her. There had been just the barest hint of calm the moment they both realized that he couldn't. Her walking away after that seemed almost a given.

And Tony's spent these past few months just trying to pick himself back up, trying to hide his heart behind a suit of gold-titanium alloy, that he honestly put aside any thoughts of Extremis. Both the arc reactor and the shards inching their way towards his heart had been removed with modern technology, so it's not like he'd ever had a true need for it.