IronStrange Week 2020

Day One: How hypoxia set me up on a blind date

Ironstrange Prompt #1, Monday.
Outer Space/Monster
Both filled.

Summary:
Tony's been tracking an SOS signal for several days when he finds Stephen, but the man is an alien and not one Tony would want to be friends with, so of course he has a dilemma. This is the beginning of them.

Notes:
Dunno why but I really wanted to write a space au for them which will continue through the week. Hope you guys like.
The title, look at it, a thing of beauty, honestly. (I think I'm funny)
Originally posted on my ao3

Tony had been tracking a signal in his ship for several days now. It began as a weak blipping of SOS in galactic standard morse code, something he’d stumbled across on his way elsewhere. He’d followed it out of curiosity, or perhaps boredom. It’d been a while since something interesting had happened. Now he was four days in halfway through his rations, but the signal was stronger now, giving a definite location rather than a general area. 

 

Getting nearer, Tony could easily see why someone had sent out an SOS. There was a large asteroid field, causing him to turn off auto-pilot and making him seize the controls himself to guide the ship through. Knowing my luck, this mystery-ship is gonna be in the middle of this blasted field, he mused, veering around a slowly rotating rock.

 

Another ten minutes and he was a little unshocked to find his guess had been right. There, in the middle of everything, sat a small three-seater ship. Its lights were either off or too dim to see, and as he neared he could see the bottom of the ship had a ragged hole. If Tony knew this model right, and he was nearly 100 percent sure he did, then the hole would have been in the cargo hold, which had an airlock in case of pirates. 

 

He lowered the power in the thrusters, pulling in close beside the ship before locking onto its signature to keep his own ship from floating off. He rolled his shoulders back to ease some tension and climbed further back in his own small ship to grab a spacesuit. It was one of his own creation but he hadn’t stabilized the nano-particles enough to make it mobile. He stepped into a small closet-like room and shut it, air hissing out before he pressed a button. Hatches in the side of the walls opened, and little flecks slid out, quickly covering his body. In seconds, he was fully equipped. Flexing his fingers to make sure they settled around his fingers correctly, he popped open the door and stepped out, heavy metal boots clomping on the grating loudly. 

 

I need to think of something to store the nano-bots in, but what would work? Stepping into a separate room is all well and good when you have time, but in a hurry? It’d be detrimental. Needs more thought- later. 

 

A few weeks ago he’d found some old songs from Earth, a bunch compiled on a disc he’d picked up while scavenging from an abandoned ship. His favorite so far was Metallica, though he did enjoy AC/DC as well. He was humming Enter Sandman while grabbing an extra oxygen pack, shoving it into a pocket that opened up after he tapped a spot on his side. He descended some steps, stepped into an airlock and pushed a button to shut it behind him. Pressing another button opened the door to the void outside, and he floated up but activated the thrusters in his suit to push him toward the other ship.

 

The hole in the cargo hold was Tony’s focus, so he changed his trajectory slightly to get to it, slipping into the dark room seamlessly. He flipped around and sent some spare nanobots to fill the gap so the airlock wouldn’t be compromised; his visor was showing dangerously low oxygen levels and he didn’t want to use up more than was necessary. Once his nanobots finished, Tony took cautious steps toward the airlock, as the steel under his feet kept groaning dangerously. Finally, he reached the button and pushed it, the door sliding open with a whoosh. Stepping inside, a red warning popped up on his visor, showing that there were life signs nearby but very low vital signs. He could only assume they were suffering from hypoxia with the levels of oxygen left in the room, quite possibly starvation and dehydration as well. He had no idea how long the ship had been stranded, but figured it had to have been a long while.