Snap Back to the Past AKA the Infinity Stones Decide to Adopt Tony Stark Chapter Twelve: The Good Part
Story Summary: The Infinity Stones decide that they don’t appreciate being snapped to destruction and that it isn’t time for their favorite human to rest quite yet. An unlikely group of six is sent back in time to fix the universe before Thanos gets a chance to break it.
Note: This is chapter twelve, but you should start with the prologue! Make sure you start with Snap Back to the Past AKA the Infinity Stones Adopt Tony Stark Prologue: The Infinity Stones Adopt Tony Stark. Happy Reading!
Chapter Summary:
If you put this scene on a movie screen
Is it called a happy end?
If the world gets me
Where I’m supposed to be
Will I know I’ve made it then?
It’s so hard
Can we skip to the good part?
Notes:
Y’all. Consider my flabber gasted.
The response to this story has been nothing short of amazing. It is an honor, a privilege, and a little bit scary to be writing something that so many people have invested in. I read every single one of your comments. Every morning that I open my email to new kudos messages—which I’m still getting multiple a week despite having not updated this fic for almost eleven months—fills me with joy that it’s hard to feel these days but you all make it worth it.
I’ll admit that this story isn’t my biggest priority right now—the muses are currently haunting me until I finish my Doctor Who and Murderbot crossover, not to mention my other Marvel WIPs (including a Black Widow AU I’ve been inspired to write based on some tumblr posts) but I promise that this fic will be finished some day, no matter how long it takes. I appreciate so much y’alls patience and your faith that I will finish this and finish it well.
My utmost thanks to Missaness, who has been an amazing beta throughout the chaos that has been our lives in the past year.
Now, this is a short chapter but don’t be alarmed—there is good reason for that in that I already have a lot of material for the next chapter that just didn’t fit into this one, so that will hopefully be out relatively soon! I hope you enjoy!
Chapter Twelve: The Good Part
Gamora had forgotten how awful it was to live under the rule of Thanos. She had gotten out. She was free of this life. Except she wasn’t, was she? Because she had still died at the bottom of a cliff, dragged by her hair and thrown off by her ‘father’. In an act of ‘love’ for her. As if his love was worth anything, if it was real at all. Gamora hated the soul stone. She hated all of the Infinity Stones. It was their fault that she was in this situation in the first place. Thanos and his madness for them was a crucial part of her suffering, of Nebula’s suffering.
If what Carol said was true, they were also responsible for her being returned to this hell. The last thing that Carol remembered before returning to the past was the Terran Tony Stark snapping his fingers while wearing a gauntlet covered in infinity stones. There was no way that the two events were not connected. Which meant that the stones are the reason she was in the past. A fresh start, but one that was as wonderful as it was horrible.
—
Loki was rattled. She did her best not to show it, to remain calm and composed at all times. It was what others expected of her. She was the one with the plans, the one who held everything together. But Loki was known as the god of lies for a reason. As many had often said, her secrets had secrets.
That was not to say that Loki lied about everything in her life. In fact, she very rarely told a lie at all. She was a god of unfortunate truths. She was a god who spun a story into what people wanted to hear. She told the best stories. And yet this new lie was one of the hardest she had encountered, because in so many ways it was true. This AI, Friday, was now her daughter. Loki’s affection for the girl only grew stronger as the days passed, and she wondered to herself what it would have been like to raise the girl from a babe. That, in turn, made him wonder about Sigyn, and about his other children.
She knew that Sigyn almost definitely hated him. And would not be surprised if his other children did as well. She had never wanted to reach out to them, mostly out of the fear of rejection. But now that she was finding herself making a family on Midgard she could not help but feel the guilt welling up again that she needed to reconnect with her family, if nothing else than to let them know about the fact that their children were an entirely different species than they had originally assumed.
Still, there was a great deal that needed to be done here on Midgard, and none of it promised to be easy. Sigyn and her children were happy and healthy without him, and he had no desire to intrude on the life they had built for themselves when he would not be wanted. Not to mention there was still Thanos to stop, and the Hela situation needed to be worked out. One day he might reunite with his children, but that could wait.
—
Nick Fury stood in the dim glow of flickering monitors, his arms crossed tightly over his chest. The holographic display before him pulsed with classified data—names, faces, all Hydra operatives burrowed deep into SHIELD like parasites. Stark was right, and that rankled something fierce within him. His jaw clenched, his typical composure fraying at the edges.
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath.
The door behind him slid open with a hiss. He knew without turning who it was, he could count on one hand who else had access to or knew about this safe house with fingers left over.
“You wanted to see me, Director?” Natasha Romanoff asked. Her stride was smooth, her expression unreadable as usual, though a small quirk of her eyebrow indicated interest at Fury’s rare display of frustration.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said after a short pause. “Hydra’s dug in deeper than we thought. And Stark… he’s a blind spot. We have no idea how he found out about Hydra when we had no clue and that’s a problem.”
Natasha hummed. “Stark’s reckless, certainly, but he’s not the enemy.”
“Not saying he is,” Fury replied evenly. “But his tech? His company? Those are things that Hydra would love to exploit, and moreover he clearly knows more than he’s sharing. I need you to get inside. Get close. Watch him.”
“Well, there is that open personal assistant position now that he’s made Potts his COO…”
“Sounds perfect. Get in. Observe. Report.”
Fury watched Romanoff walk out, certain this would be their way in.
Natasha did not get in.
Or rather, she did not get in as Stark’s personal assistant. Instead she was employed as part of his legal department. Not perfect, but still good enough to know certain privileged information… such as why she didn’t get the job.
“Since when does Stark keep an assistant other than Potts for longer than a week?” Fury asked. “What happened?”
“Since she’s the mother of his child,” Natasha replied with a tilt of her head. Fury’s eye widened—just slightly, but enough for Natasha to notice.
“I’ve seen her around a bit here and there, I had to supervise some NDAs. Stark has a daughter, eight years old. Well-hidden. Lois Fredrickson is her mother.”
Fury exhaled sharply. “That’s why you didn’t get the job. He trusts her—not just with the company. With his family.”
Natasha nodded, Fury rubbed his temple.
“Fine. New plan. Stay in Legal, see what more you can find out, but try to get closer in another way. We need to know what it is exactly that Stark knows—and if he’s a step ahead of us for the right reasons… or the wrong ones.”
Natasha smirked, already turning to leave. “Guess I’ll have to improvise.”
“Romanoff.” Fury’s voice stopped her and she glanced back.
“Don’t let him charm you.”
Her answering grin was razor-sharp. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
—
Tony was amazed at how much Morgan had grown, and despite mourning the years he lost with her, he was incredibly grateful for the opportunity to know her now, at the fact that she was here, in the flesh, his daughter. Peter and Harley were also a shock to have back, in the best way. It had been years since he had seen them, on both of their accounts, as the two had been dusted, and despite getting to hug Peter, he had never gotten the chance to see Harley return, the chaos of the battle with 2014 Thanos too intense.
The four of them were slowly forming a new dynamic as they got to know each other as they adapted to the new timeline and to being reunited. Tony hummed absently as he thought it all over while sitting at his lab bench and tinkering with his latest invention—which was either going to be a self-assembling toaster or the world’s most superfluous paperweight. Morgan draped herself over his shoulder to examine his work. “You know, if this is your way of proving your genius, it’s really not the most convincing route.”
Tony shot her a look that had zero heat in it. He was glad that she was teasing him. “Retro tech is in kid. This may not look like much, but it has a lot of potential. Vintage. Classic.”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “You keep using those words, but I don’t think they mean what you think they mean.”
A giggle came from the couch. Friday—still adapting to her human form, the weight of gravity, the warmth of daylight, the sensation of touch—was sprawled on her stomach, swiping through some of Tony’s old records on a tablet. “Boss,” she began, before immediately correcting herself, “I mean Dad—I know I’ve said it before but it’s so awesome that you built the first suit in a cave.”
Tony pointed a screwdriver at her. “Yes. With scraps. And a whole lotta spite.”
A familiar, if older than he was used to, voice chimed in. “And yet you still won’t let me use any of the much more sophisticated tools and experience to upgrade Dum-E.”
Tony’s smile at hearing Peter’s voice turned into a disapproving stare once he parsed the words. “Underoos if you so much as look at Dum-E’s code, I’m revoking your lab privileges.”
Peter and Harley strolled into the lab, Harley’s arm slung casually around Peter’s waist.
“Aw, c’mon Tony,” Harley drawled, his Tennessee accent still thick as it ever was. “We’re just sayin’—Dum-E could use some modern fire suppression protocols.”
“Dum-E is perfect,” Tony replied defensively.
Morgan snorted. “Ugh, can we not have the ‘Dum-E defense’ argument again?” It had become a running joke between them—and it was just so exhilarating that he knew his kids, and they knew him, well enough to have running jokes—that Tony was extremely defensive of his bots and that Peter and Harley liked to tease him about them needing upgrades.
Friday sat up from the couch, swinging her legs excitedly. “Oooo, can we build something, though? All of us? Together?”
Peter’s eyes lit up. “Oh! We could make a—”
“No A.I.s,” Tony cut in firmly. While he loved the A.I.s he already had, he was constantly wary of the potential to create another Ultron, though he knew realistically that without the malicious influence of whatever it was that had infected the mind stone it was not likely.
“—tiny robot,” Peter finished, grinning. “Like, a mini-bot. Harmless.”
Harley nudged him. “You say ‘harmless,’ but your last ‘tiny robot’ stole my wrench and hid it in the vents.”
“That was one time.”
Tony sighed, but he was already reaching for a spare circuit board. “Fine. But anything gets out of hand I am blaming you, and you’ll both be on cleaning and explaining what happened to Loki, Pepper, and Stephen duties.”
Morgan rolled her eyes but grabbed a soldering iron anyway. Friday clapped her hands, nearly toppling off the couch in her excitement. Peter and Harley exchanged a look before joining in the chaos, shoulders brushing as they leaned over the workbench. JARVIS pulled up a few schematic suggestions for them to view, and for a moment—just a moment—the weight of time travel, infinity stones, alternate realities, and the daunting future that lay in front of them didn’t matter. There was just this: Tony with his kids, a half-built project, and the hum of laughter filling the room.
Notes:
I know this chapter was a little episodic and might come across as filler, but it’s all scenes that needed to happen to move the plot forward for what I’m planning for the future as I wrap up this first arc of the fic (which I know has take nearly 3 years… trust me I know 😂) and we can finally get all our champions together in one room.
Next chapter’s format is going to be a bit different from my standard, and I’m really excited to see what y’all make of it.