1: The End [1]

"I want to hear it, Tony!" An old man yelled as he deflected a plasma blast with his shield and threw it at the face of his assailant.

"Arghhh!" Tony yelled as the shield crashed against his head and broke his nose, blood spilled all over the ground, his armor began to fall apart by the consecutive shield attacks that followed.

"Are You Listening?!" Steve screamed at Tony's face as he ripped out the chest plates of the armor, leaving Tony to gasp for air. "I want to hear you say it!"

"Wait.. Wait.. You.. You're right." Tony took a breath and locked eyes with his old pal. "I.. I lied, I.. I knew."

"Arghh!" Steve punched Tony with rage and agony and in the process broke his teeth. "You knew the 'Whole' time! You knew and you told No one!"

"I Know, I Know." Tony's eyes hardened as he silently charged his repulsor. "Do.. Do you know what.. Do you know what I would have done.. Done differently now, Steve?"

Steve glared at him and slowly stood up, pulling back his shield far behind and came in for the finishing blow.

"Nothing!" Tony raised his repulsor at point blank range to the face of Steve Rogers and using all the remaining energy from the Arc reactor, He fired.

A powerful blue blast of energy burned through the head of Captain America, even before Steve could scream in pain, the light in his eyes vanished.

Tony looked at the current state of Steve, his blonde hair was nowhere to be seen, his skin burnt, leaving nothing but lingering flesh at the skull plates till his neck.

'Son of a bitch.' He cursed mentally at the falling body of his former friend, his eyes stayed on it, till it fell on the ground with a thud.

"Fucking cocksucker!!" Tony screamed out loud as he laid back on the ground. 

If it was a normal day in New York, he would have definitely earned a bunch of eyes, some comments and if anybody got his outburst on their phones, he would be the hotseller and trend for the next week.

He had long-stopped caring about those fuckers and their tantrums and their assed debates about whether he was right to curse out or kiss a random woman in the public.

He used to feel like a pathetic failure, taking on all the responsibilities for the mistakes made by others, just because he had a slight part in it or no part at all but because he had the power to stop it but the incident of AXIS changed it all.

He never felt more alive, never felt more relieved, he was not the old sucker of Stark, he was not the old failure, he was new, he was better, he was superior.

He stopped holding back for others, he absorbed his true self, he was Tony freaking Stark, he was not a sadist like they called him, No! In fact he loved keeping people happy, that's why he introduced Extermesis 3.0 to the people of Los Angeles.. of course for a price.

Everything had a price but his former teammates only wanted him to pay it, he didn't sell any drugs, he made people their perfect self and it was reasonable to ask a price for that, what is he a Messiah? It was a question he asked himself multiple times.

He fell out with his friends, they didn't mind him anymore and he didn't need them either, he was enjoying his life with liquor and drugs, fucking super models every hour, it was fucking peaceful, he killed every single of his past villains, from the pathetic Justin Hammer to the lastest but at the same time his oldest pal, Mandarin, he made sure to let them suffer for all the things they did to him, before ending their measly life's.

He can do nothing but chuckle, remembering all those struggles his past self suffered and for what? A fucker in cosmos let his power go wild and now the whole of multiverse is going to collapse on itself, which leads to why this is not a normal day in New York.

New York is deserted, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he was only human in New York right now, the people were dead, killed in a battle with their counter universe selves to let their universe survive but nobody understood that there is no safe haven for this, nobody except himself.

He didn't struggle, all those efforts from Illuminati, Cabel and whatnot, they meant nothing, he couldn't help but chuckle at their attempts to survive, he knew there was no escaping this, that's why he laid there, in a random construction site in Queens, he eyes gazed at the descending Shield helicarrier, it overlapped with the size of Manhattan, his eyes didn't stop at the falling metal bird and moved behind it, that's where the real trouble was.

The red sky tried it's best to hide the impending doom but it couldn't hide a whole fucking Earth.

A Earth, that was not his, he had seem a lot of things, from weird alien civilizations to the birth of a star but this was quite the unique sight for him, he was not fascinated or intrested by it, fuck he was annoyed. 

'Is this the last act of the glorious Tony Stark? Is this what you want to leave as your legacy?' 

For some reason the words of Yinsen resonated in his ears, he couldn't help but grin at the irony of the situation.

He still vividly remembers the moment, his own weapon, a shell he created with his name on it, blasted right before him, making him walk down the path he used to be and here he was under the collision of the helicarrier, another weapon he created. 

His grin never vanished even though the carrier began to speed up it's descent, truth to be told, this is a shitty way to go, he planned his end to be on his mansion, looking out from his balcony, with his father's prohibited wine collection in his hand but things always don't go the way everyone desires, he knew that too well, with moments before his death, he mustered all the rage inside him and cursed out loud.

"Fuck Death!"

That day started with two men fighting, one was life and the other was death and one always wins, eventually Everything dies.

—---------

'Fuck Death!'

When Tony opened his eyes, he was expecting to see one of two things. It wasn't very complicated really.

Fire and a cage where he would be tortured for all of his sins or a nice beautiful world with winged women surrounding him but this, this...never crossed his mind.

His eyes darted around as he appeared to be in some sort of lair. A black, gothic, Tim Burton sort of thing. His first thought would be this is Hell but he'd expect something more similar to a burning pit or a lava oozing volcano.

His eyes darted around trying to take in his situation as he got off what felt like...a bed? A rather comfy one as well.

He was slightly creeped out, can't lie about that but as creeped out as he was, he could admit that it was rather beautiful and unique. Tony himself actually felt great, physically anyway.

His hand met his face as he rubbed it in frustration and let out an exhausted sigh as he brainstormed, trying to figure out where he was. 

His major suspects were, either this is a mind controlled virtual world, but that doubt was thrown out immediately as there was zero chance that the endo-syms Armor didn't engage itself on to him, once it found his brain frequencies differed than usual.

Another suspect was on the side of magic, he had spent quite the number of days with Dr.Strange during his time on Illuminati and he knew about the dimensional beings.

While drowning in his thoughts, he felt a presence wash over him. It felt dark and strange but also nice in a weird way.

"Tony Stark."

The voice made him jolt out of the seat and turn quickly to the location of the voice.

His eyes stopped on a vast throne, bigger than the one he saw on Asgard that belonged to Odin. On the throne there was a woman or...well a feminine figure. She was wearing a dark, inky cloak with a bikini set to match. Where the face should be was replaced by a skeleton.

So in all honesty not the worst things it could've been but still not what one would expect. Especially not what he was expecting.

Regardless, she still had a good form, with wide hips, rather nice breasts and he's gonna stop because he should not be focusing on this right now.

"Where am I? Who are you? How do you know me?"

Tony asked getting all the important questions out of the way first, Strange has warned him about demons and if this place turns out to be hell, he needs to be wary.

The skeleton only giggled which he wasn't entirely sure on how that was possible but he wasn't going to question it.

"I am the one you know as Death and you, darling, you are in my realm. You are not in Hell, not Heaven. You're just here."

She explained as Tony's bright blue eyes widened at the fact that Death personified was standing right in front of him.  

"Wait a minute, so you are Death? Like the one Thanos was simping over?" Tony voiced his doubt.

"He is nothing but a fool, hoping to court me by killing half the universe, the idea in itself is idiotic." She replied which caused him to snicker.

"I totally agree, a woman that can be bought is not worth having, but I can see why he was over you, your beauty speaks for itself." Yes, he was flirting with Death herself, was he scared, not a bit, even the threat of becoming non-existent only added thrill to his little act.

"Flattery will get you nowhere Stark." Death stated plainly.

"It was no flattery but the truth." Stark mused while he moved forward towards the throne. "So are you like the embodiment of Death or are you Death itself?" 

"You can say I'm a bit of both, I'm the concept of death and destruction that took a form and consciousness." She explained calmly.

"Huh, sounds cliche for some reason." Stark responded back. 

"Why? Why am I not in Heaven or Hell? Why am I here?"

"Because at the moment, Heaven and Hell, both are non-existent." 

"What is that supposed to mean?" 

"What is the last thing you remember?" Death questioned back as she stood up from her throne.

"The Multiversal collapse." He replied without hesitation.

"Exactly, Hell and Heaven are nothing more than dimensional planes of existence, they vanished with the end." Death answered.

"Then what is this place? This place should have ended with the Multiverse right?" 

"This is my domain, something that exists at the center of universes, while the multiverse was collapsing, a version of Reed Richards found a way to restart it, we are at the beginning of the multiversal restart." 

"That fucker did?" Stark asked in doubt. "Whatever, you still didn't explain why I am here?"

"Because I took a liking to you." Death said, which made Tony stump in surprise, he knew he was desirable but even for death to like him. Fuck, he was sure somewhere in the multiverse a Titan was dying in envy.

"I have been watching over you for quite a while but my interest piqued up, when you began to change, when you accepted your true self, every time it seemed like you were close to being mine and passing on, you always managed to escape me. You always are so clever in finding a way to win, a way to survive. I suppose I just admire that and I needed a head start at this new beginning." 

"And I come into this how?" Tony asked, not minding the stalker Infos that she just presented.

"When the universe restarts, everything will be back to normal which means you will lose yourself back to regrets and responsibilities."

"Fuck No!!" That scared him, to be back to his pathetic old self, being nothing more than a bank for his teammates and object of hatred for people he cared for, even the thought alone made him loathe it. He would rather stay dead than live like that.

Death walked forward, reaching so close to him, she raised her bony fingers and brushed it on his cheeks. "I have an offer for you, I can get your current self back to your origin."

"Back to being a baby, won't suit my style." He replied with a cocky grin.

"No, your true origin." An image of Mark 1 flashed in his mind as Death finished her words.

"What's in this for you?" 

"Let's say I got a score to settle and I need you to do that. Be a true Merchant of Death." She leaned into him, with her arms resting on his chest, her hollow eyes locked with his black ones.

"I'm interested." He grinned.