If You Had This Time Again

If You Had This Time Again (IYHTTA) is a completed Marvel Cinematic Universe fanfic by dls, a time travel fix-it Tony/Loki fic where Tony Stark is sent back in time from the end of Captain America: Civil War to the time period of the first Avengers movie.
IYHTTA is the first story in the Would You Do It All The Same? series. It is followed by Burn The Sky Down, a collection of Alternate Universe “what-if” scenes and These Days Are Ours, a collection of smut scenes, which go along with the original fic. Both of them are also complete. Dls credits her beta readers, nottotallyevil and arboreal, for being the reason she was able to keep to her weekly posting schedule for the fic.
The fic is extremely popular; as of April 2021, it had the highest hit count, second highest number of kudos and comments, and the fourth highest number of bookmarks out of all works in the Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom on AO3. It is also currently the most popular work out of thousands in the "Time Travel Fix-it" tag by comments, kudos, hits, and bookmarks.Webpage capture on Archive.is, captured April 19, 2021.
IYHTTA is written in the third person limited point of view, in the past tense. It is told primarily from Tony’s Point of View, with occasional chapters from the point of view of other characters to explain things that are happening elsewhere in the story, and to show the other character’s thoughts and motivations. The fic is Team Iron Man in perspective, though it does grant each character a chance of redemption of varying degrees.
==Summary==
The summary on archiveofourown.org reads:
If You Had This Time Again is a Loki/Tony Stark fic that rewrites the MCU from the end of the Avengers to the aftermath of Endgame. This fic focuses not only on how prior knowledge can help the protagonist navigate coming challenges but also how each change has unintended consequences as Loki cautions Tony in Chapter 4: knowledge prompts change, yet change negates knowledge. As the story progresses, it becomes more difficult for Tony to predict what is coming, and he has to react to the new developments using information that may no longer be accurate.
Borrowing from Doctor Who's concept of fixed points in time, most of the plot lines from MCU films still occur, but are brought forth or resolved in a different manner or earlier than expected.
Through this second chance, Tony finds new friendships and heals from the betrayal of old ones, faces old enemies and battles against new ones, finds a family of choice and learns that he is chosen by another - an Infinity Stone, one that holds dominion over souls and the final piece of Thanos' plan.
==Fan Response==
===Comments===
While of course there is a varied fan response to any work, those who read IYHTTA all the way through especially commented on the emotional pull of the fic, and the tearjerker ending.
yuuki_Illene says on the final chapter:
Fans also repeatedly noted how the fic was able to lift their spirits during hard times. RonneeM commented on chapter 100 that:
Likewise, Kelsey_writes_fanfiction calls the fic an ‘escape,’ commenting:
dls made sure to communicate with fans of her story. ace_aquila mentions appreciating this effort in a comment on the final chapter, even as they explain how the fic made them cry:
===Adaptations===
The fic is so popular, that many fans have helped create translations into other languages so that non-English speakers could also enjoy it. As of early 2020, the list of translations of this work include:
* Mandarin Chinese by Oxalis
* Polish by Every_Moment_Matters
* Russian by Isenbo
* Brazillian Portuguese by Thefoxandthewolf
A text-to-speech podfic was also created by saltyunicorn and can be accessed here.
===Fan Works===
IYHTTA and the discussion it inspired in its comments section led to the creation of several Recursive fanworks.
;Rejection is Hard to Take by Krafter2014
:Sometimes, things don't go Odin's way.
; by haigidal
:Multichapter Panel Fanart of various scenes
;Making it Grow by Taeryfai
:Multichapter Fanart based on discussions in the comments of IYHTTA, including Guardians of the Galaxy
;Deaths Merchant by Islenthatur and TheDarkestFallingStar
:Left bleeding to death on what once was Titan; Tony drops to his knees and waits
==Fandom Files Podcast==
In February 2019, dls was invited to read part of IYHTTA at the 38:30 mark on the 73rd episode of the Fannish Podcast Fandom Files Podcast for their “FanFiction Theatre” segment. The hosts selected IYHTTA because of its popularity (particularly its high comment count). They interviewed the author about her fic, and had her to read an excerpt from the first chapter for their listeners.
When asked about the popularity of the fic, dls had this to say:
They also discussed the popularity of IYHTTA:
One of the hosts brought up Avengers: Endgame in their discussion, and dls lamented her pain for the characters lost in that story. She posited that those kinds of painful turns are part of what motivates people to write fan fiction.
This is, in fact, the explicit motivation dls had in writing IYHTTA. Early on in the segment, she says:
dls also used the podcast to shout out again to her betas:
==Trivia==
* According to the Author’s notes on the fic, the title comes from the song “Colours” by Emma Hewitt.
* The Chapter 4 Author’s Note says “the tentative plan is to wrap this up in 20 chapters.” This guess is a little low.
* IYHTTA is a rare (possibly only) fic that refers to Bucky Barnes as neither ‘James’ (his full name is James Buchanan Barnes) nor 'Bucky', but as JB. This led to a number of jokes making pop culture references about it.
* dls got into a ‘cliffhangar-off’ with another MCU fanwriter, STARSdidathing, leading to a high proportion of cliffhangars in the middle chapters. You can see discussion of it, among other places, in the authors notes of Chapter 35 of ‘’Sharpen Your Teeth’’
* One commenter asked permission to use IYHTTA as part of their computational linguistics research.
* The author, dls, has a where she can be contacted.
* On May 20, 2021, the fic was recced by Dais Johnston on Inverse: 
==Further reading==
* by Megan Peters, comicbook.com, If You Had This Time Again is #9
* by Dais Johnston, inverse.com, If You Had This Time Again is the second listed
==References==
==Navigation==
Category:MCU Fanfiction
Category:The Avengers Fanfiction
Category:2010s Fanfiction