Tony
Tony allows himself to be interested, deeply, in the Guardian's ship Nebula finds parked not too far away.
It's an incredible piece of technology and he recognizes it's not in the same class as the giant doughnut that had brought him to this planet. (The one he and Peter — Christ, no —) He’s smart enough, too, to know that he might actually be able to figure this one out but that it was better, for now, to let Nebula drive.
She'd found what apparently amounts to a first aid kit and shoved a bottle of something he definitely doesn't recognize into his hands before moving over to the cockpit. Unlike the neat translator implant that helps him understand her, he can't read a word on this thing and he is half-certain it will kill him.
Which, he now vaguely remembers, he doesn't -- can't -- want.
It was the only way.
There’s something there, something he still can’t get his brain to wrap around, but it’s okay. He has time to think. Later.
Sniffing at the bottle suspiciously, he carries it around while he paces the ship, poking and prodding at bits and pieces, his eyes falling on evidence of the people living on it. Quill and Drax and Mantis and others, he knew. God.
He stumbles as the ship suddenly roars to life.
"Whoa-hey! Warn a guy!"
"Sit down and strap yourself in."
Tony scrambles over to a seat, but he doesn't buckle the strap. He sits on the edge instead, watching Nebula. He can feel his heart beat too fast.
"I think we need to get clear about where we're going first, Blue Man Group."
Half of him doesn't want to leave, not with Peter's body...
Ash. Ash and dust on a dead world. Alone.
Hell, he hates this. He's never hated anything more.
Tony buries the feeling, knowing he'll pay for all this disassociation later. Hard. He's trying desperately to stimulate his own fight response because if he allows himself to breathe for one minute he'll fall apart. He can feel that too.
"We're going to your planet," she tells him flatly. "You need medical attention and I plan to take this ship elsewhere."
That isn't what he is expecting to hear and while he's glad that by some miracle, she wants to take him back home, he can't help his own trepidation.
"What do you mean, 'elsewhere?'"
"Thanos."
Tony doesn't need to wait for the alarm bells in his mind to ring. He pushes himself off the seat and slides into the one beside the alien instead.
“Hey, maybe we ought to hop off the irrational train here," he tells her urgently. "We just lost. Big time. What do you think you can do now? Alone?"
Nebula avoids looking at him, but he can tell she's listening. She's stubborn and a little bit disturbing and maybe in different circumstances he'd be a lot more interested in the why and the how and the what of her, but right now --
Right now they were stuck together. In the same boat. Pretty much literally. And he can't watch someone embark on a suicide mission. Again.
"All right," he says, breezily, sinking back into the co-pilot-y seat and popping open the bottle. "Chart a course for Earth, then. Gives us plenty of time to chat through this plan of yours."
"I don't want to chat."
"And I don't want to bleed out beside you, but occasionally someone up top gets my order mixed up. Let's dig in, huh?"