FIC: the house of the rising sun (MCU, tony gen, pg)
Tony programs the sim, and his whole life flashes before his eyes. Spoilers for Civil War, title from the Animals song.
He picks the last moment. “Picks” is the wrong word, though; it's as if the sim programs itself. Again, there's no thought involved, just the movement of his hands making adjustments, building. This is his magnum opus, his greatest mistake in a life riddled with mistakes.
There was no choice, either, that last day before everything changed. He doesn't know what he would have said or done differently, not until it is years later and he has had twenty years to replay the moment over and over. He wears the memory smooth like a river rock, perfects the words, the timing. What would you say if you knew they would be your last words?
Tony sits inside the sim and watches. He is, he rationalizes, perfecting the program, looking for bugs. He's only a mechanic tinkering. But suddenly it's four in the morning and he's been out there since twilight and he still hasn't changed the past. Twenty years ago Tony looks his father in the eye, but present Tony can't. He thinks of the last gen arc reactor at the bottom of the ocean, counts the days he would have been dead if his father hadn't shown him the new element. He thinks of the palladium poisoning his blood, and out of nowhere the smell of his mother's perfume floods his senses. He remembers Howard’s hand on his shoulder posing for the photograph of Tony's first motor, the way his father's fingertips had pressed down against his collarbone as the flash went off. His mother sweeping him into her arms to pull him out of frame as his father filmed for the Expo.
Somehow this moment is the lynch pin of his whole life, and he hadn't even felt it as it went by. It's less about saying goodbye and more about remodeling his entire life up to that point to make himself the son they deserved.
The sim plays on around him, the lights flashing across his face, and Tony closes his eyes and feels his entire life settle around his shoulders. Pepper is gone, Jarvis is gone, and so Tony's house is empty except for memories.