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In hindsight, this hadn’t be one of his brightest ideas. To be completely honest, he isn’t actually sure he has had one single good idea in a long, long time. Thinking about it, he realizes his last decent one can be dating back to 2012. Six fucking years. And he is supposed to be a genius, isn’t he?
Tony takes a deep breath and turns his eyes to gaze at the stars and planets outside the window. In any other circumstance he would find the view beautiful, breathtaking. But now… now it just makes him feel even more insignificant, lost, tiny. Just one small survivor in the midst of the lucky half of the universe, left alive by sheer chance. Not for the first time in recent years, he starts wondering why. Why him? Why does the universe seem to always find new ways to let him live? Is he the object of some extremely funny, extremely dark cosmic humor?
Back in the day, before New York happened, he used to think that he had survived that Afghan cave for a reason. He clearly had no idea at that point though, did he? All the shit that has followed, he has always come on top, more or less, bruised but not broken… He’s now started to think it hasn’t been because he is part of some big plan, rather to make him pay for his arrogance. Half a lifetime of big mistakes, who knows how many innocent lives lost because of his genius, he should have already figured out it would be coming back for him in some ways.
He empties the remaining quarter of his glass with a single sip, and the alien liquor burns down his throat more than it should. He can feel the beginning of a giant headache coming, but at the same time his head feels empty and light and still too coherent. He stares at the bottle that he’d found just half an hour ago in Peter Quill’s ship. It was sealed, and now it’s only half full. He stares at it for a few seconds, as if expecting a revelation to happen, and when nothing does, he just decides to fill up his glass one more time. After all he’s alone in the middle of the universe; the blue-faced half robot, half alien has assured him that the ship is gonna bring him straight back to Earth, but didn’t say how long the journey was gonna take, and he didn’t bother asking for specifics. He could probably figure it out just by looking at the main panel, but he feels dull and everything aches and he just doesn’t care.
An hour, a day, a week. What difference does it make? They have lost, at least that was clear, which meant most (if not all) of the people he cared about were gone too. He had already tried to call Pepper and received no answer. Sure, that could have been a coincidence, but really, if what happened on Titan was any indication all signs pointed to the worst prospective. And still, till he was in the middle of nowhere, he could still pretend to be optimistic, just to fool himself a tiny bit longer.
He takes another long sip, closes his eyes and tries to stop his mind from frantically thinking, but it proves to be impossible. Thoughts rapidly overfill his head, so he forces himself to stand up, looking ahead whilst massaging his chest in an effort to kill the imminent panic attack, frantically searching for an old style phone that hasn’t left his body for the last couple of years. He would never admit it out loud, but knowing it’s there has become overtime a sort of safety net.
That’s why when his hand finds only an empty pocket, his brain starts vertiginously spiraling out, his heart rate grows more and more rapidly and breathing becomes impossible. He jumps up, blinks fast and looks around, stumbling towards the nearest display. A hand on his chest, he fiddles with the onscreen keyboard a couple of times until he gets it right, and the moment after a dialing tone echoes in the empty pod.
If he was in the right mind frame, he would never do this to himself. What’s the point in calling, right? He’s probably dead like half of the cosmic population. And even if he’s not… well, we all know the answer to that. So why is he doing it nevertheless? He doesn’t know, he’s not thinking about it, it’s more of an instinctive reaction. One, two, three hollow sounds. He’s clinging to every little bit of hope he’s got left in his weary body. He knows he shouldn’t do that to himself, and still he can’t help but praying that maybe, just maybe…
“… Hello?”
“Oh, Steve, thank god…”
It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now
And I said I wouldn't call but I'm a little drunk and I need you now
And I don't know how I can do without
I just need you now