The city of New York glittered beneath the night sky, a restless ocean of lights and motion that never truly slept. High above it all, in the Stark Tower penthouse, Tony Stark sat alone with a glass of scotch that he hadn't touched. The man who had once thrived on noise, attention, and adrenaline was unusually quiet, his gaze fixed not on the screens that surrounded him but on the faint shimmer of something far greater—a holographic projection of the Infinity Stones.
Six tiny orbs of pure cosmic energy rotated in slow motion, each radiating its unique frequency. The Mind Stone pulsed gold, the Space Stone glimmered blue, the Power Stone blazed violet, the Reality Stone burned red, the Soul Stone shone amber, and the Time Stone swirled green.
Tony had done the impossible once. He had wielded them all, snapping away Thanos and his endless army at the cost of his own life. Or so it should have been. Fate, however, had played its tricks. His consciousness—his very essence—had been preserved, not in heaven or hell, but in a body of his own making: an upgraded Iron Man suit fused with arcane Stark-tech designed to house his mind and the Stones themselves.
He wasn't alive in the traditional sense anymore. He wasn't dead either. He was something else—something he didn't fully understand.
And tonight, that uncertainty weighed on him.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.," Tony muttered, his voice carrying that familiar sharpness to hide the unease beneath. "Run the projection again. Overlay cosmic disturbances from the last seventy-two hours."
"Of course, sir," came the AI's refined reply. A cascade of golden threads appeared, interweaving across the map of the known universe. Energy surges, temporal distortions, and gravitational anomalies spiraled into one point, a nexus that pulsed with blinding intensity.
Tony leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "There you are. The source."
It wasn't Earth. It wasn't even within their galaxy. It was somewhere far more obscure, a desolate planet at the edge of known space.
And what unsettled him most wasn't the readings themselves. It was the presence he felt every time he looked at that data—a presence powerful enough to bend the fabric of creation.
Someone was out there. Watching. Waiting.
Miles away, in a quiet study untouched by technology, Franklin Richards opened his eyes from meditation. His hair, a silvery cascade that caught the faint glow of moonlight, shimmered as if the cosmos itself whispered through each strand. He had grown—no longer the boy who once marveled at heroes but a being of raw Omega-level power, capable of rewriting reality itself.
Yet with such gifts came burden. He had seen futures collapse into ash, timelines break into infinite fragments, and civilizations burn because power unchecked always demanded balance.
For weeks, Franklin had felt it—an energy calling across the stars, an echo of willpower infused with something alien. He had ignored it at first, focusing instead on maintaining balance within his own multiverse experiments. But now the signal was too strong. Too purposeful.
And it terrified him.
His father, Reed Richards, had warned him never to follow such threads alone. But Franklin knew this wasn't something the Fantastic Four could handle. This wasn't science. This was destiny.
Standing, Franklin's aura rippled, distorting the air around him. His Omega power sang, mapping every possible outcome of what lay ahead. And in each version, one figure always appeared—encased in crimson and gold, eyes glowing with the light of the Stones.
Iron Man.
Back in Stark Tower, Tony secured the last plate of his armor into place. The stones hummed within their respective sockets, their resonance filling the chamber with a weight that seemed to press on reality itself.
As the Mind Stone locked into the forehead plate, Tony winced. It wasn't pain, not exactly—it was influence. Thoughts not his own brushed against his mind, visions of futures that flickered in and out like broken film reels. One in particular chilled him: himself and a boy, both standing against a tide of darkness that threatened to consume entire galaxies.
"Looks like I'm not drinking tonight," Tony muttered, masking his dread with dry humor. "Alright, J.A.R.V.I.S., plot a course to…" He hesitated, eyes locked on the glowing nexus. "That rock in the middle of nowhere."
"As you wish, sir. Shall I notify the Avengers?"
"No." His answer was sharp. Too sharp. "This isn't their fight. It's mine."
He knew he was lying to himself. Deep down, Tony Stark understood the truth: the stones hadn't been preserved in him by accident. They had chosen him again for a reason. And whatever that reason was, it involved the presence he kept sensing in the periphery of his mind.
As the thrusters roared to life and the stars opened up before him, Tony Stark—Iron Man—hurtled across the void, unknowingly on a collision course with Franklin Richards.
And somewhere in the silence of the cosmos, destiny waited.