milehighmechanic· // tony
tony has never hated space more.
for years these unfamiliar stars have haunted him, dreams of undefeatable armies, chitauri and more, of death and something WORSE. he’d known what they were heading for the moment bruce had started his story about thanos and his army from space; it still hadn’t been ENOUGH. ( peter’s dead, he’s gone, and tony promised—- he can’t afford to think about whether anyone on earth is still left alive. )
tony won’t lie —- having quill’s company is infinity preferable to being alone out here.
they’re not the worst team, either. in spite of rocky beginnings, the plan they’d made together had come SO CLOSE to succeeding. even now, tony might be the superior mechanic but this is technology and systems he’s never seen before, quill at least has experience of space travel, of fixing spaceships and how the fuck they’re MEANT to work.
his progress is stunted by the stab wound in his gut anyway. tony’s not in danger of dying anytime soon, not from that, they’ve patched him up as best they can—— no, they’re just gonna die because they’re stranded in fucking SPACE.
has he mentioned that he hates space?
“if i had, we would be moving,” tony points out, voice muffled from where he’s half hidden behind a bulk of engine. at least trying to fix the engine has given him a purpose. to not focus on the crushing guilt. he shuffles out to look at quill, too tired to really be annoyed with him. “trial and error’s not a particularly effective method when error could blow us out of the sky.”
“ sometimes it’s hard to tell, “ a genuine smile spreads across the thief’s lips. it’s not funny. nothing about their situation was funny but, still, he found himself smiling. his shoulder pushes off the console he’d been leaning against so he could squat down closer to where tony was working. “ they don’t show you that. in the movies, i mean. “ bright eyes glance around at all those blinking lights he still wanted to punch into submission. somehow the smile manages to widen. his life had mostly been a shitshow and he knew that. but, somehow, he’d finally managed to find a family in the stars and in that moment he wondered what his mother would’ve said about that.
“ sometimes the stars are so far off you can’t tell you’re moving closer or farther away from them. jumps are the only sure way. it was a dumb question. i know it was a dumb question but sometimes this stuff just falls out of my mouth when i’m... “ nervous. scared. “ there’s also no sound out there. i was bummed to find that out. star wars was one of my favorite things back on earth. “
fingers comb through the growing strands on top of his head. he respected tony more and more every day. things were rough at the start but, then, peter tended to have that affect on people. now that they were on somewhat friendly terms ( he thought, anyway ) there were so many questions he wanted to ask. peter refrained because he wasn’t sure if asking about earth would be more of an upset than a help. “ why don’t i take a turn? at least if i blow myself up you can learn from my mistakes. plus, you’ve been at it for a while. i’m not holding up my side by just watching. “