A little too tired of just hanging on

Chapter 01

The armor was dead. Lying on the cold concrete floor, Tony was unable to move anymore. He thought it had to be the end now. Friday was out of reach. Anyway, it wasn't like she would have been able to contact anyone willing to come save him. Nobody was caring enough to take their arses down to bloody cold Siberia. No one.

Pepper was too far away. They were on yet another break. The woman never wanted to receive that kind of phone call. They had many fights about that. Rhodey was probably in surgery at that exact same moment. The colonel had lost enough already. His so-called team had walked in the sun, leaving him behind.

His baby girl AI was so young. She probably didn't know what to do. The genius wished he had given her more freedom, a real chance at growth. He was going to die here and no one would be able to do that for her. He would take that regret to his grave.

Was death a concept his mechanical children fully understood anyway? The bots knew about missing him. Afghanistan had told them that particular lesson. Tony was scared that Dum-E, U, Butterfinger and to some extent Friday would actually hope for him forever. Unless someone would turn them off, something Tony didn't want to think about. He would not be there to try and make them understand. That concept he should have explained a lot earlier. Tony was definitely not a good parent. Like father, like son. Just like Howard, he was about to die at the hand of a super soldier. Well actually two. Guess Tony did something better for once.

This was not the death he had imagined for himself. Not that far off either. At least, he was dying in the armour after a fight. A death like during the battle of New York was more what he thought would happen. At the hand of the enemy, defending his planet. Rogers had proven that he wasn't a friend, but Tony wasn't sure he was an enemy either. They never got along. From the very beginning, when they had met in the helicarrier, they had been at odds.That being said they had been teammates, shield brothers like Thor would have said. The danger shouldn't have come from there.

Tony, looking at the ceiling, thought that he shouldn't have survived that attack in Afghanistan. What made him better than the soldiers who died trying to save his life? They were so young. They had their whole life in front of them. They deserved better than that. The open heart surgery, in the middle of the desert, without any proper equipment, should have killed him as well. Or the septicemia from the lack of antibiotics. Or being forced face down into murky waters while holding a car battery. Even his escape in the first Iron Man armour had been a Hail Mary. He was living on miracles, one after the other. The wheels of fortune were finally turning against him.

Yinsen should have been the one getting out alive from that cave. He had been a far better man than Tony would ever be. He would have been doing so much better with his life now. The man had told the genius he was the man with everything and nothing. All these years later, it was still very true. More than that, it felt like Tony had lost the little he had back then. He didn't deserve anything anyway. He wasn't a hero. He wasn't even a good friend. Tony was not a good man. Simple as that.

The hot unforgiving desert and the water had scared him for a long time after the three months in the cave. Wandering in the dunes without water, trying to put as much distance between him and the Ten Rings as he could, Tony could have -should have- died again. Being waterboarded in that cave also made his relationship with water very tricky. Showering had been really hard for a long time. He still couldn't go to the beach. Now he was stuck in another kind of desert, one made of snow and ice. It was burning all the same.

At that moment, Tony really wanted for things to go faster. 'Die already!' What was the point in dragging it any longer? Blood was slowly but surely pooling in the armour. Even though he was trying to move his fingers, he couldn't even tell if they were budging anymore. Breathing was difficult. It had been harder since the hard reactor had been put in his chest but now it was reaching another level. Frostbite was unforgiving. Even if, by some miracle again, he would get out of that bunker alive, Tony knew that some of his toes and fingers were lost forever. He wasn't sure he would be able to live with that. Without his toes, being in the armour would be hard. Maybe he would be able to invent something to get some sense of equilibrium back. He was a mechanic after all. Without his hands he couldn't create though. Without his fingers, he was nothing. So, really, he'd rather be dead. 'Get on with it!'