[ The walk to the ship, despite all the stopping and going, feels like a blur for Tony. Maybe it’s shock. Maybe it’s the effects of the blade piercing through him. Maybe the adrenaline has already worn off. Whatever it is, it makes him lack focus. Sometimes it doesn’t dawn on him that Quill has said something until some time has passed by, but he can’t help it. It’s as if just taking one step after another is hard enough to do; if he lets himself think or do much beyond that, his brain is just not ready to process it. Not yet. Not when he just wants to go back, try to get Thanos back. Take me instead, he wants to tell him. Don’t take the kid. Don’t—

Of course, he knows it doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t even know where he disappeared to, although he has an idea, but now there’s the annoying question of what now. What do they do now? They had lost. Thanos had wiped the floor with them, and now...

He mumbles a quiet thanks to Quill once he helps him sit, and Tony unzips his jacket for easier access to where the makeshift webbing bandage is holding his skin together as much as it can, but even through it he can see the red seeping through. There should be a more emotional reaction to watching the wound that should have killed him bleed rather than take him out, but all he feels is guilt. He shouldn’t have been saved. It shouldn’t be him. Peter should be the one here, alive. Not him. Never him.

By the time Quill comes back, Tony looks pale but still awake enough to show that at least he’s not at the verge of passing out. ]

Yeah, it’s fine. You have, uh. bandages or something? I don’t know how much longer this thing will hold, and I don’t think I have enough nanonites to try to make more.