Coyote Son

Dislocated
Self is fading
Falling back from what I was
Flying through existence
Tumbling towards a burning sun
Something screaming in the distance
Telling me to come
It's calling me
"Into the Unknown" – Starset

++

There was a break within the Avengers long before Thanos had finally managed to come to Earth. The division between the two teams—two teams that should have been one—was clear for any to see, no matter how perfect a media smile the members were able to put on for the general public. It was that division, that glacial-wide crack that ensured that Tony was unwilling and unable to turn his back on his one-time teammates: it was the exact same reason why he couldn't bring himself to trust that they would have him covered whenever he moved in for close-range combat with Thanos and his army and the generals that oversaw it all. One eye was always facing forward, ready to meet the latest challenge... the other, however, was constantly glancing over his shoulder, wary and waiting for the blade to bury itself in his back, next to his spine.

It was this inattention that ended up costing Tony:

Steve had come up on his four, movements too fast, and the brunette remembered how the other man darted in and attacked, the solid connection of hits against his own armor—the deeply biting chill of a perpetually wintertime Siberia; it caught the inventor off-guard in the worst sort of way, making Tony freeze as he tried to fight off the sense memory and just how thoroughly it typically managed to immerse him. That moment of hesitation as he tried to fight his way back to the Now without alerting the others was less than a second in time but still enough for Thanos to send out a blast from the Infinity Gems Gauntlet, tossing Tony ass over tea kettle as he spun through the air, boneless and out of control and at the mercy of several of the Gauntlet's Gems, radiation flooding his suit and setting off a plethora of alarms.

He landed, out of breath and in pain—but grateful enough to be alive after such a direct hit from Thanos—and perhaps, if Tony hadn't already been on edge from Steve's appearance at the peripheral of his vision, he might have immediately questioned why he apparently appeared unharmed. No one had yet sustained a direct hit from the Gauntlet and managed to get up unaided. But... Tony did. Not easily and not steadily: but he got up all the same.

It was the moment that the inventor would remember weeks later, even though—now, at the moment and immersed in the battle ahead—the dark-eyed man just tried his best to shrug off the jitters that still clung to his skin, little spider legs marching up and down his limbs in an echo of distaste and wariness—Tony just powered up the repulsors in the boots and shot back towards the Mad Titan at full capacity.

There was no point in hesitating, not when so much still depended upon him. He couldn't afford to lose: not now and maybe, perhaps, not ever.

++

Tony's limbs trembled as he was finally allowed to step out of the Iron Man suit, shaky and lightheaded from too much time inside the armor and not enough breaks between re-entering the melee—it didn't necessarily matter anymore, not when the battle was finally--finally--finished and he was allotted the time to rest. Food, shower, and bed seemed like a perfect combination to the engineer right now, and Tony headed towards the elevators with the intent of heading towards the Compound's communal kitchen to grab whatever was currently on hand to eat before retreating towards his bedroom.

Anything sounded delicious at the moment—hungry enough that even one of DUM-E's motor oil smoothies sounded appetizing—but the dark-eyed man was confident enough that FRIDAY most likely had ordered from one of the restaurants that had been a staple in the Avengers' rounds when the team had last been gathered together under one roof.