SOME CAPTAIN MARVEL SPOILERS BUT NOT MAJOR ONES THAT YOULL BE LIKE AW FUCK DUDE CMON

   Tony leaned back from his suit's headpiece after recording his last messages that would eventually be found and shown to Pepper, long after he was gone. He wasn't sure if the signal was strong enough to reach his suits back on Earth, so hope of someone coming to rescue him from nothing but blackness and the reflection of the stars had diminished to nonexistent. He was going to die here, and if he was completely honest, he wasn't okay with that.

   He wanted to live to grow old with Pepper, to be that couple that would sit on a park bench and talk about their grandchildren's achievements as they fed breadcrumbs to birds.

   He wanted to live to marry his fiancé, to make amends with Steve Rogers, to explain to Bucky that he finally understood the murder of his parents and how it wasn't the ex-assassin's fault, he wanted to give Natasha a kiss on the cheek for just being amazing like he usually would do, he wanted to build new weapons for Clint and watch as he grinned as he tried them out, share endless amounts of blueberries with science bestie who had slight anger issues, joke with Thor about anything and everything, and he really wanted to give Peter a strong hug, and reassure him that he was safe.

   But none of that was going to happen because he was stuck in a broken spaceship, with little to none amounts of oxygen, no food and no water with a robot that, although company, won't talk much. If he could, he was pretty sure he'd be crying right now.

   Tony let out a small puff of air from the back of his throat, watching as the lights in his helmet flicker to a stop, completely shutting down, along with the rest of the power of the ship. The darkness blended with what was outside of the spacecraft, making it a struggle for Tony to clumsily pull himself into the cockpit, wanting the view of stars and planets to be the last thing he would see, rather than empty black.

   He wasn't sure how long he had been sitting there, his hand resting above him on the back up generator for lights to keep it on, only taking in slow and shallow breathes, when a dot of orange light had appeared in the distance, a strange contrast to the usual white of other stars. He leaned in to see if he could get a closer look at it, when he noticed how rapidly it was growing, moving.

   Moving straight for him.

  His mind was whirring. Who was this? What was this? Was it one of Stephen's buddies with their weird magic? Was it someone in one of his suits, coming to rescue him? Or was it some alien trying to kill him,  yet again.

   The figure was close enough for him to make a judgment. Definitely of human stature, and kind of looked like his suits with the orange flames coming from behind. Maybe it was Pepper, using the suit he had made for her in case of emergencies. But how would she have gotten the coordinates? The signal definitely wouldn't have reached a prototyped suit like that.

   The figure got closer, and Tony almost gasped. Had Captain America turned himself into a woman?

  Which, don't get him wrong, there's nothing wrong with that, but he still would be a little surprised.

   The lady was floating outside of Nebula's ship, her head tilted sideways as she looked the man up and down, and a sudden tingle of self consciousness tapped into Tony's thoughts. The lady looked very out of place among the black nothingness and the white specs of reflections. With a red, blue and gold suit, surrounded by what looked like fire, with her hair in a Mohawk, she smiled a little.

   "Hello," she said with an American accent, with a small sense of sadness in her tone, somehow her voice coming through the speakers of the ship. Tony couldn't read her eyes, seeing as they were bright orange. "My name's Carol, and you're Tony, right?"

  Tony felt himself nod, still slightly confused with the woman. "Are you here to rescue me?" He mumbled, voice rough from lack of water, words desperate from lack of oxygen. He watched Carol nod and felt himself sink back in the matted chair in relief.

   "Yes, but I'm getting readings that oxygen levels are low. It would be too risky for me to come inside and take you and your friend back out again. So I'm gonna fix your engines and pull you back to Earth, sound good?" The mechanic could almost laugh, if he had the energy. He couldn't wait. Carol grinned and headed to the back of the ship, shooting at the engine with an energy blast and pushing her hands against the metal next to the engines.

  Before Tony could even say 'Pepper', Earth was in clear view. He felt the ship begin to slow as the Carol lady switched from the back to the front, catching the spacecraft and guiding it to a soft landing, which Tony was grateful for. As soon as they had stopped, Carol smashed the windows open, letting in endless amounts of oxygen for Tony to eagerly take in.

   "That was my best landing yet," she told him as she jumped into the ship through the windows and heading over to the immobile man. "Solid seven out of ten, huh? Now, your friend is a robot, right? So I'll come back and power her up once we sort you out with some medics."  She hooked her arms under his knees and below his neck, lifting him up and flipping down her mask, letting her short blond curls fall loosely around her neck. "So glad I got this job, everyone wanted to save you, you seemed very important to everyone. Your fiancé got your message, by the way. She was crying a lot, but I think everyone was, even the scary lady with orange hair - I keep forgetting her name."

   She talked the whole journey, her casually walking around in miles of forestation, occasionally stopping to allow Tony a refill of nonpoisonous berries from trees. It didn't take long to figure out that they were in Wakanda, not lost, but heading in the right direction, a slow process.

   Eventually they had made it to the barrier, where Tony had been carefully set down and Carol fiddled with a device on her arm.

   "Come in, Steve, come in," Carol said into what looked like a Star Wars hologram of Steve, looking tired but hopeful.

  "Did you find him, Danvers?" Tony watched her frown, and lift an eyebrow at the same time, and expression which he definitely wanted to learn. "Sorry, sorry, Carol. Carol, did you find Tony?"

  "Yep, he's here with me now. However, extremely malnourished, dehydrated, and several injuries that will need treating. He also had a beard." 

  "You try dry shaving with a shard of glass and see how quickly you give up."

   "Hush, dear. The captains are talking."

  "Captains?"

   "Steve, lift the barrier in section 13-B, can you bring a car or something, the distance is quite far." She shut off the hologram without another word, carefully picked Tony back up into her arms and stepped through the entrance. She walked for a little while, explaining about how she was a captain, her past, relationship with Fury (Not Nick, not Nicholas, just Fury), and caught him up with everything that had happened after the snap back on Earth.

   They were quickly met with an almost broken hovercraft, the vehicle's flight pattern was shuttered and uneven, with a set of broken engines underneath, but it would do for the short journey. According to Carol, Wakanda had been attacked during what she told him the world had dubbed 'Infinity War', and almost all tech had been destroyed by aliens, and there was no super genius teenager to fix anything. The ship they had sent was the only one left in a good enough condition to actually rise to the air.

A frown creased upon the mechanic's face as he was buckled into his seat by the kind lady, his shoulder patted twice for comfort, thinking of the raging battle that must have taken place in Wakanda, all those lives lost for nothing. The brave soldiers and warriors giving up their lives, only for half of the universe to lose theirs too.

It was so unfair, and Thanos was going to get what he deserved. Whatever it would take.

-.-

The rest of the ride was a mix of blurs and shuttery stops, but when they had finally made it to whatever building the remaining Avengers were, Tony was immediately greeted with several tired looking paramedics, each one guiding him to a stretcher that Tony was definitely not going to lie on. Instead he sat with his legs hanging over the edge as an oxygen mask was pulled over his face to cover his nose and mouth, and IVs were pressed into his skin. A heart monitor was attached to his chest and his tank top was taken off to give the medics a chance to dress the stab wound around his stomach.

During all of the synchronized chaos, Steve and the rest of the Avengers walked in glumly, clearly noticing the sped up heart rate from Tony but smartly ignoring it, saving the mechanic's dignity.

"You look like shit," Clint broke the silence - so much for dignity.

"New haircut?" Tony asked through the mask, a ghost of a smile tugged his lips.

"I noticed you copied my beard," Thor grinned, turning to Steve and high-fived him.

"Like I said to Carol, you try dryshaving with a-"

"Shard of glass, yeah yeah. So how are you feeling?"

Tony opened his mouth to respond, Im fine. But he wasn't, he couldn't even bring himself to lie. He turned to Natasha, noticing her new orange and blond hair style. It looked nice.

"I like your hair Nat," Tony whispered, not trusting his voice any louder in fear of it cracking and showing his emotions. But clearly the assassin didn't care, as she went over and wrapped her arms around him, Tony quickly returning the favor and burying his head into her neck to hide his face. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you too, Tones. I'm so sorry about Berlin, and leaving you for so long, and not talking to you. It was so tough, I thought you hated me." They broke apart and she kneeled on the floor to be eye level with him, showing how sincere she was.

"It okay. I get it," Tony gave her a weak smile, and not very discreetly wipes away a tear. "You were trying to keep the Avengers together, I get it." Natasha gave him another long hug.

"Let me get some of that," Clint said as he waltzed over, draping his arms around their shoulders. Thor laughed and did the same, along with Bruce. Steve, in the other hand, went over to talk to Carol about the lady robot on the ship that needed to be brought back.

"So," Bruce said tentatively, wringing his hands together as the hug broke apart. "Before Danvers- Carol, before Carol got you back to Earth, we were talking about who was left to help us finally defeat Thanos and bring back the rest of the universe. When you were in space, who were you with and who is left?"

"Well," he paused, swallowing the lump in his throat, the image of Peter laughing and dancing around to a Queen soundtrack as he held a random wrench to his lips as if he was singing suddenly came to mind, reminding him of who he had lost. Strange insulting his ego, acting as if he despised the man, but then sacrificing half of the universe for his life - even if it was for the future to go as planned. Quill, Mantis and Drax messing around with the weird gravity and being general idiots, but then surprisingly coming up with a good plan.

"I was with a group of three people who called themselves 'Guardians of the Galaxy', apparently there's a talking tree and talking raccoon somewhere in the group but I didn't see them. They dusted. I was with Doctor Stephen Strange, this really attractive wizard with a cool goatee, but he dusted too. Um, there was Spider-Man too, he was great. He um, h-he," he dropped his head into his hands, steading his breathing.

A soft hand was rested on his shoulders, rubbing it slightly. "We'll get them back." Carol said, eyes trained on his.

"How?" Voice so broken and eyes so lost, all he wanted was his family and friends back.

"We just need to get the gauntlet and destroy the soul stone." Steve spike for the first time, in his ever so confident voice. Crossing his arms, he stood a few feet back from the rest of the group, clearly feeling out of place.

"You make it sound like it's easy." Tony pointed out, defeat still evident in his tone. He brought his hand to scratch at his uncomfortable beard, a new habit he had developed when stressed while thinking. He did it so often that it started to hurt.

"It won't be," Steve insisted, determination and pride the only obvious feeling surrounding him at the point. "It will be the hardest thing we have ever done, but this time we'll win, and I know it. Do you wanna know why?"

"Why?" Thor implored, sitting next to Tony with his arm loosely thrown around the shoulder of the friend he'd missed for months. Tony subconsciously leaned into the hold, having lacked psychical contact for so long when he was used to hundreds of hugs and kisses everyday.

"Because this time, we're together." Tony rolled his eyes at his ex-friend's dramatics.

"Say something cringier, I dare you." Thor laughed and clapped Tony's shoulder, seeming to be the only one willing to smile in the group.

  "It's great to have you back Tony," he grinned, before getting up and grabbing his new weapon, stormbreaker. "Hey Tree, how are you today? Guess what, Tony came back! Exciting, right?" His voice trailed off as he walked down the halls of the buildings, however no one really paid attention to the fact that he was talking to inanimate objects as he usually treated mjolnir like a child.

  Tony sighed with content as he looked around, with Thor being his usual kooky self, Steve righteous as ever, Natasha - legendary badass but a complete sweetheart, Clint the reserved yet funny guy, Bruce shy yet extremely kind and compassionate. He hadn't realized how much he had missed being in the same room with all of his friends. He smiled at each person.

"It's great to be back."

I know I said hiatus, buttttt

When I say hiatus I think I probably meant slower updates? Dunno

So please tell me what you thought of this chapter!!

Captain marvel what the fuck a m a z i n g lmao young nick and goose the bitch ass cat

"Last time I trusted someone I lost an eye," ya bitch u could've been eaten, YA GOT LUCKY FAM

Okay enough of me being a weirdo, endgame is coming out and no one is readdyyyy