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Tony leans back against the wall, one hand pressed to the mark at the base of his neck, just above the edge of his suit. It’s dark against his pale skin, warm under his fingers.
He closes his eyes, the ghost of Bucky’s mouth there from last night. A pre-mission fuck in the dark that had turned sweet and slow and desperate. He leans into the memory of it, real in a way the rest of the fucked up world hasn’t been in a long time. He’d been soft and safe, just the press of teeth on his skin, breath warm and damp, Bucky heavy above him. The surety of the one man who didn’t need anything from him except for him to stay exactly where he was.
He’d made Tony feel safe in the middle of a world that had spent the last few years proving just how fragile that idea really was.
Tony lets out a quiet huff, something between disbelief and amusement, because if you’d told him a year ago that this is where he’d end up, he would’ve laughed right in your face.
“Who would’ve thought?” he mutters under his breath with a faint, disbelieving smile. “Not me, that’s for sure.”
The comm in his ear crackles, pulling him back to reality, voices overlapping and strained as the rest of the team fights across the East River, still trying to hold the line. Tony doesn’t answer right away; he just listens for a second and lets the familiar and beloved voices settle into him. He’s not sure they’re going to win this one.
His hand shifts slightly against his neck, pressing harder before he lets go with a hiss of pain. He looks down at the blood on his fingers.
Across the room, the thing that had once been a person lies twisted on the floor, jaw hanging open, teeth stained dark. Tony watches it silently as he feels the heat of his neck spread, a steady, creeping burn through his veins that makes his fingers feel just a fraction slower when he flexes them. He doesn’t need a scan or a readout to know what it means.
Fifteen minutes, maybe less.
The comm flares again, someone calling his name. “Yeah,” Tony answers, pushing himself off the wall. “Still here.”
He doesn’t mention it. There’s no time to complicate things, and no version of this in which they can help him anyway. They’ve cleared Manhattan of anyone still breathing; it’s just him and the undead now, and the only change of plan is that he isn’t leaving anymore.
He and Bucky said everything they needed to last night.
He steps forward and kicks the dead zombie out of his path. “Congratulations,” he mutters under his breath. “Whole world’s been trying to kill me for decades, figures it would be a random nobody.”
Ahead of him, the control panels glow faintly, a cluster of steady lights in an otherwise dark room. Tony heads toward it and ignores the burn at his neck. He just has to hold on long enough to save the world, again.
“It’s fine,” he says quietly, looking down at the dark city below. “Part of the journey is the end, right?”
He reaches down toward the controls, fingers dancing across the screen, slower now as the virus races through his blood, but they still know the way. He tunes everything else out—he has a city to blow up.