###**Chapter 11: The Return and the Unseen Watcher**
Chapter 11: The Return and the Unseen Watcher
[Time Skip: 12 Hours Later | Military Transport, En Route to the U.S.]
[Tony Stark's POV]
The steady hum of the military transport was the only sound in the cabin.
Tony sat hunched forward, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing in particular.
He was physically here—back in familiar airspace, back in a world that should have made sense.
But his mind was still in that cave.
Every time he blinked, he saw flashes.
Sparks flying from a hammer striking metal. Yinsen's tired but kind face. The dim, flickering glow of the arc reactor in his chest, the one thing keeping him alive. The echoes of gunfire. The screams. The bodies left behind.
His fingers twitched, running along the edges of the cold metal embedded in his chest.
He shouldn't be alive.
By all accounts, he should be lying in the dirt of some nameless canyon, just another casualty of war—another name on a list the world would forget.
But he wasn't.
And that was the part that unsettled him the most.
Across from him, a young soldier kept sneaking glances, clearly unsure how to act in the presence of Tony Stark, a man the world had presumed dead just days ago.
Tony caught the kid's gaze and smirked faintly.
"You gonna stare the whole flight, or do you want an autograph?"
The soldier snapped straight, face turning red. "N-No, sir! I just—I mean, it's good to see you alive, sir."
Tony let out a breath, running a hand through his unkempt hair. "Yeah," he muttered. "Lucky me."
The words tasted bitter.
He leaned back against the vibrating cabin wall and shut his eyes, but the darkness brought no comfort. Only memories.
[Severence's POV]
Severence remained unseen, watching from where the veil between worlds was thinnest.
Fate had bent, but it had not yet broken.
Stark's survival was inevitable. The moment had played out countless times, across countless realities. This was no accident.
Yet, something had changed.
Severence could feel it—like an invisible weight pressing down on this moment, a ripple across the currents of reality.
He was not the only one watching.
A presence lurked beneath the surface, subtle but undeniable, like a hidden thread woven into the fabric of this world's fate.
Severence turned his gaze toward the void beyond the physical realm, searching.
But there was nothing.
For now.
Yet the feeling remained.
Something had woken him. Something had pulled him from oblivion.
And whatever it was...
It had its sights set on Tony Stark.
[Time Skip: 6 Hours Later | Edwards Air Force Base, California]
[Tony Stark's POV]
The moment the plane touched down, he was greeted by a storm of flashing cameras.
A crowd had gathered. Reporters, military officials, government representatives—everyone wanted a piece of Tony Stark's miraculous return.
As he stepped off the ramp, the roar of voices hit him like a physical force. Questions were shouted over one another. Microphones thrust forward.
But Tony barely heard them.
His eyes found her instead.
Pepper.
She was standing just past the security line, hands clasped tightly, eyes locked onto him with an unreadable expression.
For the first time in months, Tony felt something close to relief.
She was real.
She was here.
And, for some reason, that meant more than he expected.
He forced a smirk as he walked up to her. "Your eyes are red."
Pepper crossed her arms, unimpressed. "No, they're not."
"Yeah, they are." He tilted his head, studying her face. "You crying for me?"
"I—I have very sensitive eyes, Stark."
Tony chuckled, but it lacked his usual bravado. "Sure you do."
There was a pause. The air between them felt heavier than it should have.
Pepper's gaze flickered to the arc reactor glowing faintly through his torn shirt.
He knew she had questions. A thousand of them.
But she said none of them.
Instead, she let out a quiet sigh. "Come on," she said, voice softer now. "Let's get you home."
Tony hesitated for only a second before following.
Home.
For the first time in his life, he wasn't sure where that was.