CHAPTER 40

He landed on the roof of the balcony of the Avenger's Tower. The suit falling out from around him.

"Dad!" I cried, my voice hoarse, tears spilled out and I stopped what I was doing to rush over to him. Whatever he'd done, whatever I'd done. We were still family. I picked him up, his breathing was laboured, his veins were dark with the poison. Fighting had made him worse. "You're not going to die." I whispered, my voice hitching. Tony shook his head weakly.

"Please, Lana, stop all of this." He whispered, I looked upwards at the chaos and destruction not realising he'd taken his last breath in my hands.

"No!" I cried, shaking off the vision, possibly seeming insane to outsiders. "No! It will not happen." I strode forwards angrily, confidently, dropping the façade, I ran to his crumpled form. "It won't." I croaked. Tears bordered on the edge of my vision. I hadn't cried for some time. I didn't remember the sensation of absolutely falling apart. The crevice of pain across my chest.

"Please, Lana." He managed, "stop all of this."

"Don't say that!" I cried, cradling his head in my arms, the Death around him was so thick. I produced the potion from the folds of my coat, popped it open and fed it to him, through his cracked lips, his breath hot on my skin. "I know where this ends. But for now, I'm changing it. You're not going." Tony's eyes are closed but he's not dead, I can tell because the aura around him recedes and the hold my Mother has on him is almost completely gone.

"FRIDAY." I say assertively, looking at the open suit. "Take Tony somewhere safe, to the labs actually." Apparently Tony hadn't taken my authority clearance out of the database because the suit moved forwards, picked him up and left. I closed my eyes at the stab of pain that entered my gut. I dragged in a breath. I could feel it, Tony chose me over his wife, her left her alone, without the support she needed, she gave up, she was gone. Pepper was gone. I tried not the let the tears escape. I'd told her that this was going to happen but I thought... I thought that I may be able to prevent it somehow.

Finish it. The voice was hard in my mind. You have lost many things, but finish this and you'll never lose anything ever again.

I turn back to the portal, slightly aggravated by Loki and Dooms' absence. An inconvenience perhaps.

"She says that you're going to have to make a decision soon, and you're going to do what everyone expects." The merc's words rung clear in my head. Is this what everyone expects me to do? A slow grin made its way across my face, I felt the darkness flush within me with pleasure. The computer beeps persistently. The portal was finished, it was time. My hand hovered over the button, I'm sure the dramatic score increased in the background.

Tony was supposed to stop you. A voice whispers in my mind, I pause. Tony was supposed to stop you by sacrificing himself. Through his death you'd realise that you needed to stop.

But now the future has changed.

A presence arrives and I can instantly tell it's Loki.

"Where have you been?" I snorted, "thought that I was going to have to do this by myself."

"I was going through drive thru." A voice challenges back. I whip around. What I see makes me more fearful than Tony's death.

The Lokison has arrived.