Day 61
Tony felt useless. He had tried helping Nebula fix the the Guardians’ ship, and he tried to help her move the rubble away, but he strained himself to much and accidentally reopened his wound. He shuddered, remembering falling down and clutching his side, blood filling his mouth as his side dripped blood slowly onto the ground. He had gotten it closed back fairly fast with the web fluid Peter had given him, for just in case emergencies like this one.
Now he was sitting alone in the small shelter Nebula had made, wrapped a blanket that she had found aboard the Guardians’ ship, she was off trying to get the ship back up and running. They had been there for the past three days. Tony shivered and hugged the blanket tighter around him, he wasn’t really sure if the shiver had been because it was cold, or because of blood loss. It was probably both. He had slowly been losing blood over the past three days, and was getting weaker and weaker everyday; part of that was blood loss, and part of it was that they had very little food and water, and were rationing it.
Tony leaned his head against the doorway of the hut, and watched Nebula work from a distance. He wanted nothing more then to get up and help, but he couldn’t; he could barely find it in himself to stay sitting up.
“Hey, you should be inside staying warm,” Nebula said as she approached the shelter. She helped Tony back inside where he sat on a cot she had pulled out of the ship, “The ship is almost ready to go.”
Tony nodded his head a little. He felt kind of bad, he really hadn’t said much at all to her over the past three days, but it hurt to breath, let alone talk. He hoped she understood, she didn’t seem like the kind of person who talk much anyway. He had noticed something interesting though; never once had she asked him how he was, probably because she knew the answer. He also had a feeling that she knew, just as much as he did, that his strength was failing quickly, and that he was most likely going to die before they made it to Earth.
“You can’t die, you know,” She spoke almost as if she had read his mind.
“I’ll try my best not to,” He replied and smiled wryly.
“I’ve always been alone, and the only people I care about are dead. Having to be here keeping you alive, is the only thing keeping me going… the only reason I haven’t…” She trailed off, Tony knew what she meant by this, and it scared him a little. He was a little curious about this blue person's history.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? It was Thanos not you.”
Tony shrugged, “Sorry you don’t have anyone.”
“Oh.”
Tony sighed and immediately started coughing, a little blood came up and ran out of the corner of his mouth. Nebula reached forward and placed a gentle reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“You just have to make until tomorrow. I have a just a few tweeks and the ship will be good to go,” Nebula said quietly and helped Tony lay down. She pulled a blanket over him, “You’ll survive Stark.”
He wasn’t so sure about that, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to survive. What would going home bring? Surely more heartbreak. Were Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey okay? Tony thought about these things as he lay quietly with his head propped up on Nebula’s leg.
“Stark, your bleeding again,” Nebula said with a touch of concern. Tony lifted his head a little to look. Sure enough fresh blood was soaking through his hoodie. He lay his head back on Nebula’s leg, his vision getting blurry. He closed his eyes. He didn’t even care anymore.
“Come on Stark, wake up,” Nebula said frustrated, “Damn it.”
She lifted his head off her lap, Tony was too tired to open his eyes. She got up, turned him on his side, and left the hut. Tony moved his hand to his side. Hot sticky blood covered his hand; He was bleeding more than he thought. He knew he should get up and try to stop the bleeding again, but he just could not make himself open his eyes.
He was done.