Chapter Text
~Playlist of all mentioned and featured piano pieces and songs~
On a quiet, sunny spring morning, Thanos and his lackeys drop down on Manhattan to finish collecting the Infinity stones. All he needs is the Mind and Time stone and the universe would soon enjoy a rejuvenating cut in all of life.
He spends days searching for the Time stone all over the accursed planet, leaving his armies to deal with the rebellion - that would turn out to be his first mistake. While he’s desperately looking for the last piece of the puzzle, his forces suffer great losses on the scattered battlefields, despite having an advantage in numbers.
The second mistake he can’t explain.
While the Mind stone is there for all to see, the Time stone evades him entirely. It is supposed to be on Earth. His tingly Infinity Sixth Sense, his gut and everyone he had tortured thus far are telling him the Time stone is on this planet. Yet, there he is, standing in Central park like a dumbass, his dream slowly shattering around him because the Time stone can’t be found and the personification of his nightmares – Tony Stark – wastes no time mocking him about it.
The Mind stone lingers in his presence for all of five seconds longer before the Red Witch, who already dispatched his most loyal and powerful minion, destroys it right in front of his greed-filled eyes - the hope of ever completing his collection and accomplishing his goal being destroyed right along with it.
Without the Time stone, there is no getting it back.
In the end, it was all for nothing. Decades worth of careful planning and scheming. Wiping out world after world in search of the stones. Sacrificing his daughter to the Soul stone. All that and he achieved nothing.
Defeated by a bunch of mostly mortal pests and their inferior technology and teamwork.
With a broken gauntlet, broken bones and a tail between his legs, Thanos packs his invasion into a neat donut ship and speeds away into space, facing a raging mid-life crisis of what to do next and one very angry and vengeful Star Lord chasing after him.
The Earth can finally breathe a sigh of relief; the biggest threat it would ever face squished and peace once again reigns over the blue planet, thanks to the Avengers.
And the mysteriously nowhere-to-be-found Time stone.
For Tony Stark, this is the end of a years-long nightmare. Now, now he can finally rest.
***
“What do you mean you’re done?” Rogers gapes at Tony, the accusative undertone not even subtle anymore.
Tony widens his smile and leans back in his seat. “As in…done. Finished. Hasta la vista, baby. É tutto finito. Completely, one hundred percent, done.”
“With…the Avengers,” Rogers adds, coming full circle with Tony’s original statement.
“Yep.”
“As of…”
“…right now. Correct. I could have it set into stone if you need it in big letters - or change the Comic Sans 12 in this here official statement into Comic Sans 72. Huh…how about that?” Tony taps on his StarkPad and does in fact change the font size.
It looks disgustingly perfect.
“Uhm…we’ve just re-established the team…and you’re done with it?” Rhodey leans sideways to him, his wide-eyed glare fixated on the StarkPad though.
“Yep.”
“Can I be done with it too?” he asks, ducking away from Carol’s glare.
“You’re a free man, Platypus. If you want to be done with something then who would dare stand in the way of your freedom?” Tony quips back at him, giving the still gaping Rogers a pointed look.
“You being serious? Holy shit, you are,” Rhodey states and joins the gaping competition. “That’s…damn. Good for you, Tones!” he eventually breaks into a grin.
“See? That’s the reaction I was expecting,” Tony returns the smile and beams at everyone else present. “Now, come see me out of here,” he nods at Rhodey and the slightly confused Peter next to him.
“The…uh…the meeting has just started,” Rogers blurts out and it’s clear his brain is yet to process the news.
“Yeah, I’m sure Carol can handle it from here, right?”
“You got it, ex-boss,” she rolls her eyes at him, radiating amusement in spades. She is after all the only one who knew about his plans for well over a week now…and she did predict the mixed reaction from the team.
Stunned silence from the former Roguevenger side, mild shock from the outstanding and new members of the team, and indifference from Barnes and Maximoff.
The battle with Thanos mended a lot of bridges in the fractured team, the most surprising being the so far non-existent one between Tony and Wanda. He’s been fully ready to give the witch the benefit of the doubt, for Vision’s sake if nothing else, but in all honesty he wasn’t expecting much to come out of it.
Her performance during the week they’ve been sleeplessly battling off Thanos and his invading armies impressed even Tony’s sceptic mind. Fought off the enemy magic man, protected Vision for days and eventually destroyed the Mind stone once it was safe to separate from the android. The dedication to the cause and not even a single complain or remark leaving her mouth for the entire ordeal, just pure focus and unquestioning teamwork with everyone involved, showed just how far she’s moved on since her exile.
Unlike some other, supposed adults. Thankfully, he won’t have to deal with those for a second longer.
“See y’all later. Maybe. I’ll keep in touch…maybe,” he adds in a whisper and strides towards the exit.
The moment he steps out of the Compound he can finally breathe.
As if on top of all the damage his chest has suffered through the years, it was really just Thanos and his heavy, unsightly foot that weighed it down the most. That and the Rougevengers. He doesn’t have to deal with either anymore and the realization alone almost makes him cry.
“So you’re not even going to stay at the Compound?!” Peter all but interrogates him later when Tony takes them out for lunch.
“Gods no.”
“Does that mean you’re homeless?!”
Rhodey almost spits his milkshake across the table at that. “That’s a good question, actually.”
“I’m looking for a place. Got a realtor and everything so I expect to be moving in by the end of the week.”
“Seriously? No more building gigantic towers? Big-ass mansions? Picket-fence farm somewhere down south?” Rhodey teases him.
“Nope. I just need a place to tinker and maybe sometimes sleep. Don’t need anything with more than three rooms – or floors – for that.”
“Oooooh, my man Tones is retiring full-time. Unbelievable. You gonna sign up for local bingo nights?”
“Don’t push it, Platypus. I’m just…tired,” he sighs and some of that exhaustion must show in his features because Rhodey loses the smirk immediately. “Obviously, the next generation’s got everything handled so I can rest assured that the Earth is safe and sound even without Iron Man.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Stark! We’ve got this! Well…I’m free after 3PM so I’ll be taking afternoon shifts!” Peter exclaims excitedly.
“Uhuh. I’d still appreciate if you’d stay on your field trip next time a donut ship lands in the middle of Manhattan.”
“But - ”
“You said it. Only after 3PM.”
“Am I supposed to ignore evil aliens until the bell rings then?” he pouts and digs absentmindedly into the ice-cream platter.
“Does it matter what my answer to that is? You’re just going to do whatever you think is best…can’t argue with that,” Tony shrugs and gives the teen a fond smile.
Rhodey sends him a knowing look and goes back to his milkshake while Peter stares in pure wonder at Tony.
He keeps the smile on for the rest of the meal and hopes this is what his days going forward are going to be like. Banter. Laughter. Peace. All day every day.
***
Few hours into his house-hunting exercise, he’s already regretting his decision to sell the Tower – sure, it was obnoxiously big for just a couple of people to live in, let alone one, but at least he knew the thing wouldn’t crumble in the middle of the night or worry about rowdy neighbors and their equally rowdy pets.
Seven different apartments later, Tony can tell the realtor is getting more and more fidgety. If she expected Tony goddamn Stark of all people to be an easy customer, then she’s out of touch with reality.
It’s not like he’s picky…okay, maybe he’s a little picky. All he really wants is a spacious apartment where he can stuff his lab and bots into and for it not to be a ruin. He could deal with rowdy neighbors – AC/DC blasting out of his illegally modified speaker-set would see to that.
For some reason, none of the offered places fit his expectations. And when they kinda did, Tony just wasn’t feeling it. Which sounds weird even to his own exceptionally functional brain but that’s just how it is. All those places felt lacking, so on and on they go.
Until they stop just on the outskirts of Manhattan by a large residential block. It looks fairly new and judging from the thorough sound-proofing the realtor immediately brings up as a plus point, rowdiness will not be an issue here either.
“Here we are,” the realtor, Regina, leads him into the penthouse of one of the buildings and at this point, Tony doesn’t expect anything anymore.
So it takes him by surprise when something about the flat immediately clicks into place with him.
Spacious – check. French windows – don’t mind if he do. No tacky or ancient furniture – check and check.
In fact, the only two pieces of furniture in the living room slash kitchen is a bookcase and a piano. A piano. Who the hell sells a place with a piano in it and a damn fine looking one too?! Does it come with the apartment?
“Oh. The piano, yes, it does,” Regina answers, so he apparently blurted the thought out loud. “Is…that a concern of some kind?” she adds, already paranoid enough to question all of his questions.
“No. No, just wondering why would anyone want to part with this beauty,” Tony dismisses it, running careful fingers across the smooth, dark wood of the instrument.
“I see. Well, the place was actually sold fifteen times in the past two years…and I’m only telling you this because you insisted on full disclosure.”
“Fifteen times?! Was there a murder scene? Or actual skeletons found in the walls or something?”
“It’s supposedly ‘haunted’,” she rolls her eyes and the quotation marks she makes with her hands speak clear of her disbelieve. “Or so the fifteen buyers claim.”
“Huh.” One crazy person claiming paranormal activity is one thing, but fifteen? Interesting. “Whatever.”
“Whate…are you sure? You dismissed the last apartment because ‘the air smelled funny’,” there she goes with the quotation marks again. He should probably feel offended.
“It’s a gentle way of saying the place smelled like shit.”
“It…really didn’t. Anyhow, supposedly haunted,” she points around the room. “Not a concern?”
Does she not know who he is?! “I’m a man of science, I don’t believe in…’haunted apartments’,” he mimics her and smirks.
Haunted or whatever, this place…this is it.
It feels right for reasons he no longer cares to explore and he’s not one to ignore his gut. Plenty of space, decent view, the piano is a nice bonus…with a bit of decorating, it’s going to be perfect.
“Of course. Let me show you the - ”
“I’ll take it,” he spins around on his heels to face her, clasping his hands together.
“ – bath…room. You’ll take it?” she frowns, but he can see the fires of hope igniting in those cold and calculating eyes.
“I sure will, piano and ghosts and everything.”
“That’s…brilliant!” she exhales and wouldn’t be able to hide her mirth if she tried. “I’ll get the paperwork ready.”
An hour later, he is a proud owner of his very own penthouse apartment and the idea of retirement finally starts to take shape with it.
***
“Please be very careful with this one,” Tony narrows his eyes at the three guys currently moving in the big box with the bots inside.
“Wait, what is this sofa? I don’t remember this sofa.”
“That’s because it’s brand new,” Pepper closes her eyes and sighs.
“I don’t remember buying a new sofa.”
“Because the decorator bought everything – thankfully,” she adds, lips twitching.
“I’ve created new elements, yet it sounded like you’ve just doubted my ability to buy myself furniture,” he pretends to sniffle and puts on a fake hurt expression.
“Oh I don’t doubt you could do that, I just doubt this place could handle your…particular style.”
She’s definitely right about that.
“Security is up and going,” Happy walks over to them and hands Tony a StarkPad.
He eyes it suspiciously for just a second before taking it, the slight hesitation getting absolutely no reaction from Happy.
“FRIDAY?”
“Hello, boss,” she replies from the newly installed intercom.
That’s it. The last touch of hominess. “Welcome home, Fri,” he grins upward.
“You’ve certainly gone minimalistic this time around.”
“Don’t you start too,” he chuckles and throws the tablet on the newly installed sofa. “Well. This is it. What’cha guys think?”
“It’s…cozy,” Pepper looks around, nodding.
“Tiny,” Happy adds.
“But home-y,” she points out.
“And none of the potential visitors are going to need a map to navigate through,” FRIDAY chimes in.
“Alright. I’m done with you, heathens. Now off you go, I have a lab to unpack and assemble.”
“Oh!” Happy holds up a finger and disappears into the hall for a second, returning with two fire extinguishers. “Almost forgot the bots’ luggage,” he smirks.
“Why haven’t I fired you yet? There definitely needs to be some firing…especially now that I have the extinguishers ready. You just wait,” he rambles on even after Happy puts them down and turns to leave, the smirk only growing.
“Bye, Tony,” Pepper chuckles and gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Let me know when you’re up for that housewarming party. I will handle everything.”
God bless this woman. “Thank you, Pep! Light of my life!” he calls after her, getting one last chuckle in reply.
The doors close with a click behind his two friends and the remaining guys from the moving company and Tony finds himself alone in his new home. As alone as anyone can be with FRIDAY’s eye in the sky and the bots already getting restless inside that box.
“Okay, alright! I’m coming you little…I know you’re not fond of tight spaces but you’re so going to have to get used to it now!” he sighs and walks into the guestroom turned lab and gets to work.
***
It happened just one week later. Tony knew it would. There's never enough maniacs and emergencies in New York for the Avengers to handle so right on schedule, one decided to attack the Big Apple with their supermutated cats.
Tony can't even be surprised anymore. He's been through and seen so much shit that triple-headed fluffy Persians hissing at unsuspecting joggers in the park is not even unusual in his book. No. The hard part was to know there's an emergency and the Avengers had been called - and do nothing.
Just continue sitting in his cozy little apartment and watch it on the TV through the fifty security cameras he hacked, his fingers nervously twitching on the arc reactor, ready to suit up. And he could. Even retired, he could join the fight under the revised Accords...which do clearly specify these terms as Earth-threatening emergencies.
Tony's genius brain eventually decides that mutated cats do not fall under that category - not to mention the Avengers have everything under control within minutes. Minutes.
By the time the Avenger alarm goes off for the fifth time a month later, Tony doesn’t even look up from the new StarkPhone model he’s working on. The Avengers got this. They don’t need him. He can just sit here and tinker for the rest of his days.
He really didn’t think this whole retirement thing through.
Autumn comes and goes, snow soon covers the streets and disappears, giving way to warm spring breeze and Tony has invented and upgraded more things in the past months than he’s done in years. Mostly because he can’t sleep and if he can’t sleep then what else is he supposed to do all day and night?
“Can you maybe slow it down a bit?” Pepper gives him an awkward smile after presenting the latest monthly report. “You’re single-handedly destroying the market…again. I know trillionaire would sound a lot better than billionaire, but you’re inventing cool things faster than we can produce and distribute them.”
“Sounds like an HR problem, not my problem,” Tony shrugs, staring at the empty project file he opened this morning and can’t for the love of his genius think of anything to put down into.
“Have you thought of getting a hobby?” she discards the report and leans across the table.
“This is my hobby.”
“Of course it is. How about something other than this?”
“What do you mean other than this?” he frowns.
“Other than tinkering and inventing?”
“Like what?”
Pepper sighs, quietly chuckling at whatever expression she sees on Tony’s face. “Anything? Literally anything else will do, Tony. Attend cooking classes or something. Yoga, reading, golf, horse-riding - ”
“Not really my thing, thanks,” he rolls his eyes, trying to smother the image of himself casually riding horses around some ranch.
“Take up piano lessons then!” she exclaims, waving at the abandoned piano in the middle of the living room. “You love pianos but I’ve never heard you play one in my life!”
That’s because he inherited all the wrong kind of genes from all the wrong side of the family.
“Just because you haven’t heard me play doesn’t mean I can’t,” he argues, but Pepper simply destroys him with a well-aimed look of utter doubt. “What?! I can play! Chopsticks…and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
“Wonderful! Then you can expand your repertoire in your free time. God knows this thing has been standing here all silent for too long…look at it! It’s just catching dust!” she walks over to it and smears the clearly visible layer of dust off the part of the hood.
“It sure is,” he retorts, but has to admit the idea sparks an interest – the kind he hadn’t felt since MIT days when Rhodey dared him to build a functioning moonshine distiller from nothing but coke bottles, tape and rubber-bands. Back then, that was a challenge.
After building a flying and weaponized suit of armor out of scrap metal, nothing really felt challenging enough to even call it a challenge. His brain sure has stagnated in the build-upgrade-build some more-upgrade harder mode.
It’s been a while since he challenged himself with something new. Different. Potentially boring and useless.
“Fine,” he gives up, glaring at Pepper’s immediate cheer. “I’ll…look up some YouTube tutorials. Don’t expect to hear Chopin anytime soon though, there’s a reason I’ve never really tried playing the piano! It wasn’t - ”
“Your thing, that’s fair. It might become your thing. That, or something else. FRIDAY can hook you up with some exotic hobby next,” she smiles, walks back up to him and places a fleeting kiss on his cheek. “Don’t sweat it, Tony. You don’t need to work all day long anymore, enjoy yourself,” she says like it’s the simplest thing in the world, takes her purse and waltzes out of the apartment.
Enjoy yourself. Easier said than done, especially since the last time he enjoyed anything was way before Afghanistan.
“Enjoy yourself…pffffft,” he scoffs and stands up, approaching the piano with careful steps.
‘Enjooooooy yourself, it’s later than you think, enjoooooy yourself~’
“Thanks, FRIDAY. I didn’t realize you were Alexa now.”
“You seemed to be struggling with the concept, so I simply decided to put it into context for you.”
“This is what happens when you give AIs the power to decide things, Tony. And then you decide to leave the Avengers without an actual plan of what comes next and now you’re glaring at a piano, talking to yourself. Perfect. I’m losing my fucking mind!” he flails and sits down, opening the cover and taking off the protective smooth green layer of cloth, revealing the shiny black and white keys.
“Insomnia can do that to a person.”
“You said it," he mumbles, running his fingers across the keys. If he were to just sleep regularly like a normal person though, losing his mind would be the least of his worries. There are some things he doesn't have to re-live every night. "Noooo, thank you," he whispers.
'Nooooo thank you, is what I should have said, I should be in bed…~’
"FRIDAY? I will uninstall you, I swear to G - "
He shoots up from the piano stool, backing around the instrument in seconds with his now gauntlet-ed hand raised and eyes searching the room. His reaction time had really managed to go to shit in just few months.
The room is completely empty though, the source of the unfamiliar voice nowhere to be found.
“Boss?”
Tony squints around the room some more before he glares upward. “Did you just use the voice changer again?! What did I tell you, Fri?! Not funny!”
“I had uninstalled it the first time you almost had a heart attack, boss. And I assure you Peter didn’t attempt to re-install it since then either.”
He gives his silent and undisturbed surroundings one more thorough check, still using the piano as a shield. “Then who. The fuck. Just said that?!”
“Said what, boss?”
“The…the thing. About the insomnia, hm?”
“I haven’t heard anybody speak in the last few minutes other than you.”
“Right,” Tony clears his throat, eyes flicking around the room. “Hm. You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Great. That’s…fucking perfect,” he breathes out, letting the gauntlet disintegrate again as his defensive posture slumps. “I’m just hearing shit then. Wouldn’t be the first time, I guess. Just thought skipping out on the alcohol would solve all that. Fucking. Perfect!”
“Insomnia can do that to a person too, you know?”
Tony whirls around and this time the room is not so empty anymore. Standing there by the window all casual and smug is a funky dressed man that most definitely wasn’t standing there a minute ago.
“Intruder alert. FRIDAY?” he blurts out, the gauntlet up and ready again.
“There is nobody else present on the premises other than you, boss.”
“So now I’m seeing shit, too?!” he yells, keeping a close eye on the smirking guy.
“Again, insomnia can have that effect. You might wanna do something about that. Now get out of my flat,” the man says in an utterly bored tone and takes a step toward Tony, hands shooing him away.
Tony’s instincts finally kick in and he shoots at the approaching man – and the shot goes straight through him, shattering the French window behind him - much to the man’s apparent annoyance.
“The f-f - ” is all Tony manages to stutter out before the rest of his instincts take over and have him scrambling away from the piano and out of the apartment.